🍞 Bread winners

Plus: An EV "scandal," a fun vocab game, and more.

Share The Hustle: https://thehustle.co/join?ref=7598767985 Check your referral progress & prizes here 👋  Happy Friday. Hope you can unwind this weekend — don't let that "constructive" criticism from your exec get you down. Turns out, they might not have even written it themselves: 87% of executives report using AI at work, compared to 57% of managers and just 27% of employees, per a study from HR software company Dayforce. So go ahead, shut that laptop.   🎧  On the pod: Reddit vs. Perplexity, a tool for making your clothes modular, and more in our AI roundup. STARTING UP The startup shielding astronauts from space junk ❌  The problem: Space junk, lots of it! Elon Musk-owned SpaceX alone has ~8.6k Starlink satellites orbiting Earth, and they're competing for room with the 25k pieces of debris already floating around. (Those are just the tracked lumps of junk — there could be as many as 170m bits and bobs up there.) 💡  The pitch: Atomic-6 is developing "space armor" — made from lightweight tiles — to protect astronauts and satellites from swirling junk.   🚀  The outlook: While we'd ideally clean up the interstellar garbage, shielding the things we do want in space is the next best thing. Atomic-6's space armor took 18 months to develop and has passed projectile testing here on Earth. Also, the startup — worrisomely — says its armor solves for the "growing threat" of "adversarial spacecraft." NEWS FLASH Eight Sleep is working on "outage-proofing" its $2.5k+ smart beds after the AWS outage led to overheated bedding, missed alarms, and uncomfortable locked positions. Amazon announced it's developing smart glasses for its delivery drivers that will allow them to locate and scan packages, receive walking directions, and take delivery proof pics without stopping to look at their phones. Fact-check: Researchers at the European Broadcasting Union found that among AI answers about the news, 45% have at least one big issue, 81% have a minor issue, and 31% have sourcing issues. Example: ChatGPT claimed Pope Francis (RIP) was the current Pope. The mysterious object that struck a United Airlines aircraft and forced an emergency landing may have been one of startup WindBorne's weather balloons, which are designed to collect atmospheric data, not space debris as previously speculated. GEN Z ON AI Gen Z is wielding AI better than you Valerie Chapman, like plenty of her Gen Z peers, straight-up embraces AI.  It's how she gained 3m+ LinkedIn impressions, landed paid ad partnerships, and even went full-time as a creator while you were busy twiddlin' thumbs (making no monies). But we're not here to rub it in your face… We begged her to tell us what works, and this is what she wrote. AI for career growth   THE BIG IDEA The viral online bakery making serious dough   Frozen food doesn't have a reputation for being healthy, delicious, or fresh. But Wildgrain, a subscription delivery service for baked goods, is working to change that.    The online bakery sources preservative-free, artisanal breads, pastas, and pastries from 50 independent bakeries from around the country and sends them directly to your doorstep, frozen and ready to bake.   Founded in 2020, the Boston-based company is the first of its kind, with 100k+ subscribers and over $31m in annual revenue.    How it works: Each month, subscribers build a box of six or 12 items, depending on their plan. Orders are packed with dry ice or gel packs and take 1-3 days to ship, with delivery available throughout most of the US. The carbs arrive par-baked and frozen, so it only takes ~5-20 minutes in the oven for them to be ready to eat, no thawing necessary.  Too much bread for you to handle? You can skip, pause, or cancel your subscription (which allows the small-scale bakeries to plan and estimate volume) up to four days ahead of your next order. Otherwise, you can store them in the freezer for up to 12 months.    A recipe for healthy, inclusive carbs   Choices include gluten-free, vegan, and protein options (how on-trend), as well as seasonal ones like cranberry-pecan loaves and pumpkin cinnamon biscuits (yum).   All ingredients are non-GMO, and free of preservatives and artificial flavors and dyes. Wildgrain also prioritizes locally sourced and seasonal ingredients.   Its popularity is no coincidence: More consumers are turning away from ultraprocessed foods in favor of healthier options, food intolerances are becoming more prevalent, and, well, who doesn't love good bread?  The boxes aren't cheap…    … ranging from $99 to $189 a month, but perhaps worth it for the quality and convenience. It's received glowing reviews from dietitians and bakers, and was just voted the best food subscription box by USA Today for a third consecutive year.     The company — which reached profitability after just three years and grew sales "significantly" in 2024, co-founder Ismail Salhi told Food Business News — also recently raised $10m in Series A funding.   Its next goal: "to become America's online bakery inclusive of all diets," which it'll advance by expanding its offerings to include keto-friendly options this year. 🔗 HIGHLY RECOMMENDED   Look for a "sea of sameness" and do something different: Serial entrepreneur Eric Ryan shares his framework for devising top-dollar businesses — and some wild startup ideas (to preview: a better Metamucil, white-label chicken, and fun-shaped cheese). NEWSWORTHY NUMBER How much less carbon plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) emit than cars with internal combustion engines, according to a new study from Transport & Environment, a Brussels-based nonprofit that studied hundreds of thousands of vehicles registered in Europe between 2021 and 2023, per Gizmodo. The study's findings are considerably lower than the 75% touted by sources including EU regulators, leading study co-author Yoann Gimbert to tell Gizmodo it's "quite a scandal to have this gap between real world and official data." Gimbert said the discrepancy could be because European drivers aren't driving in fully-electric mode as often as they could and because even when they do, hybrids still aren't fully electric as they burn fossil fuels to assist their electric motors. AROUND THE WEB 📅  On this day: In 1901, 63-year-old Annie Edson Taylor became the first person to survive the ill-advised feat of going over Niagara Falls in a barrel. 🤖  That's interesting: The Oatmeal on AI art. 🗞️  Newsletter: The Daily Upside covers the market, geared at CFOs, fund managers, and other power players. Subscribe for free. 🧠  Game: Name that thing. 🐿️  Aww: Pecan hoarder. QUOTE OF NOTE This probably won't hold up in court: The handwritten agreement, scrawled in marker on a notebook page, that Friend founder Avi Schiffmann signed at a protest against his company's product — a $129 chatbot-enabled pendant — in NYC last week, per The Verge.  When Schiffmann, who's made it clear he isn't afraid to have touchy conversations about AI (see: Friend's subway ad campaign), heard about the protest organized by a group of anti-AI activists, he apparently flew out to be there, even publicizing it later on X… All press is good press, we guess? SHOWER THOUGHT A sprained ankle would be significantly more life threatening during prehistoric times compared to today. SOURCE Today's email was brought to you by Juliet Bennett Rylah, Sara Friedman, and Singdhi Sokpo. Editing by: Ben "Body 99% composed of baked goods" Berkley.   Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here. Working on something big? We've got a whole library of business-building resources for you. Subscribe to our other newsletters Stay up-to-date on AI: Mindstream  |  Expert insights: Masters in Marketing  |  Sell better: The Science of Scaling Follow The Hustle on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram. The Hustle, 2 Canal Park, Cambridge, MA, 02141, USA, +1 888.482.7768 Never want to hear from us again? Break our hearts and Unsubscribe.