🚂 Americans: “Chug, chug, chug”

Plus: A startup that covers for Mother Nature's bad behavior, an epic chess match, and more. ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­  

Share The Hustle: https://thehustle.co/join?ref=7598767985 Check your referral progress & prizes here You're just 3 referrals away from earning a Hustle Essentials kit. Check out all of our prizes here. Share your link: https://thehustle.co/join?ref=7598767985 👋 Good morning. It's a beautiful day to… turn into a frog? In Heber City, Utah, police recently began testing an AI program that syncs with officers' body cams to spit out incident reports. Sure, why not? Less paperwork, more doing cop things. Made sense… until they noticed one police report claiming that an officer shape-shifted into a frog. (It was picking up a background TV playing The Princess and the Frog.) STARTING UP Will body scans ever get cheap enough to break through?  ❌  The problem: This is a two-parter: First, we're all frail little humans living under threat of hidden ailments within (from organs to arteries to the overdue consequences of a few too many entire-sleeve-of-Oreos-as-a-meal binges). Second, perhaps you're one of the 12% of surveyed Americans who told Gallup they feel a "great deal" of confidence in the health care system… but probably not.  💡  The pitch: Ahead Health is the latest in a series of boutique health startups looking to give people more visibility into their innards — and more shots at early disease detection — with full-body MRIs and wide-ranging blood tests. But this Swiss company is particularly of-the-moment, as it leads its pitch with vague promises about AI driving its diagnostic platform. 🚀  The outlook: Led by ex-Google execs, Ahead has parlayed its optimistic AI-powered vision into enough capital to start expanding across Europe, but as much as proactive health care sounds nice, cost remains a big barrier for body-scan upstarts. Ahead's cheapest package starts at ~$2.5k. (You also have to go to Switzerland, but that part sounds nice.)   NEWS FLASH   Beep, beep: New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced forthcoming legislation that would allow robotaxi pilots in New York state — but not New York City — for applicants that can demonstrate "adherence to the highest possible safety standards." Waymo, unsurprisingly, was a fan of the news. You probably don't think much about ammonia — a crucial ingredient in fertilizer — but startup Ammobia says it's found a more sustainable way to produce it that can cut costs by up to 40% and it's ready to put it to the test. Rain check: WeatherPromise is a startup that offers refunds to customers whose vacations are ruined by "worse than promised" weather. It differs from travel insurance because people can still go on their albeit soggy vacation and receive compensation. Drama: The FTC accused JustAnswer, maker of an AI-powered search engine, of duping customers into unwanted recurring charges. Customers who join for $1 or $5 were funneled to a screen where only fine print disclosed monthly fees of up to $79, leading to a deluge of complaints. FROM OUR FRIENDS AT MINDSTREAM Microsoft is testing how fast humans will tap 'Buy' Don't you just hate it when you have to visit a website to buy a thing? Ghastly. Can you even imagine? So inconvenient. Well, it's your lucky day: Microsoft is adding a new shopping feature to Copilot that lets users buy products directly within a chat — no pesky websites needed.  If you ask the chatbot for product recommendations, it'll start giving you a checkout option right then and there, saving you a click en route to spending way too much on a bedside lamp. 👉  Read more on Mindstream   THE BIG IDEA Americans are finally getting into train travel There's something decidedly romantic about trains. They're generally pretty comfy, and you can walk to a dining car or the one designed for scenic vistas. There's also, at least according to our suggested Netflix titles, a chance there might be a murder mystery afoot. Americans — despite living in a nation that has long prioritized driving while others invested in rail — are increasingly choosing to travel via train.    Amtrak logged 34.5m customer trips and $2.7B in adjusted ticket revenue in FY 2025, a 10% increase from FY 2024, per Business Insider.  Why?  Trains not only rule for the aforementioned reasons, but they've also been getting better.  Amtrak, which is largely owned by the US government, has made a number of improvements in recent years to both its trains and stations, helping to curb delays — especially on its shorter routes, which are the ones passengers use most often.  At the same time, other forms of transit kinda suck. Amtrak travelers can read a book, catch up on work, or do a crossword puzzle, whereas drivers are stuck paying constant attention and gritting their teeth through gridlock.  Then there's flying. Driven in part by factors like labor shortages and the rising cost of jet fuel, airline fares were up 25% YoY in June 2025, the highest spike since tracking began in 1989.  And that extra cash is often funding a demonstrably worse experience:  Seats have gotten smaller, both slimmer and closer together, with less padding. Perks are disappearing. Southwest Airlines ditched its famous "bags fly free" policy, while other airlines no longer offer free upgrades for loyalty program members. Aging technology and a lack of air traffic controllers have led to widespread disturbances, many of which made national news and likely diminished confidence in air travel.  Not to mention, TSA has long been a hassle, with far more baggage restrictions than Amtrak, and a more laborious security screening process. Amtrak passengers can generally show up ~20 minutes before their train leaves, grab a coffee, and hop on.  There are also… … attempts by startups to revive the halcyon days of rail. Dreamstar wants to offer an overnight sleeper train between the Bay Area and Los Angeles using Union Pacific's existing tracks. Lunatrain is also preparing to launch sleeper trains across North America. In September 2025, it debuted Halloway, a platform to connect passengers to private (and luxurious) railcars, often attached to Amtrak routes. Fun fact: If you still want to partake in that murdery-mystery, there are several games aboard operational trains. Here's one in Kentucky.   🔗 HIGHLY RECOMMENDED   WTF happened here? Used car reseller Carvana saw explosive growth — and then saw it all fly right off a cliff. Still, despite its historic stock collapse and its goofy-as-hell car vending machines, the company's still kicking. How?  NEWSWORTHY NUMBER Square-footage of a new Amazon supercenter being built outside of Chicago, per Business Insider. According to planning documents, it will sell groceries, general merchandise, prepared foods, and more, and offer in-store pickup for online orders as well as other services.  The megastore concept, which received approval from local officials last week, represents the ecommerce giant's latest push into physical retail and puts it in more direct competition with big-box retailers like Walmart and Target, who are probably hoping the move works out as well as Amazon's past brick-and-mortar efforts — which is to say, poorly.   AROUND THE WEB 📆  On this day: In 1831, author Victor Hugo finished writing The Hunchback of Notre Dame, taking just four months to pen the classic tale. 🗞️  Newsletter: The Daily Upside is a morning staple of CFOs and fund managers, but you can subscribe free today even if you lack one of those fancy titles. ♟️  Video: The world's best chess player takes on a novice, but the rules increasingly favor the newbie. 🧠  Game: A daily logic puzzle with ever-changing rules. 🐶  Aww: Shopping spree. SHOWER THOUGHT Mornings feel better when the first thing you touch is not your phone. SOURCE Today's email was brought to you by Juliet Bennett Rylah and Singdhi Sokpo. Editing by: Sara "Off the rails" Friedman.   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. HubSpot Media, 2 Canal Park, Cambridge, MA, 02141, USA, +1 888.482.7768 Never want to hear from us again? Break our hearts and Unsubscribe.