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👋 Good morning. Yes, that meeting could’ve been an email. It could also have been ~30 flights between the Orkney islands of Westray and Papa Westray in northern Scotland. The route is the shortest passenger flight in the world at 1.7 miles and takes around one minute to complete. Unlike that Zoom, the flight does have a reason to exist: The waters between the islands are choppy and unpredictable, making ferry service difficult, and building and maintaining a bridge isn’t worthwhile for the few dozen residents who might need it.

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NEWS FLASH

A Joby aircraft flying across a cityscape.

✈️ Wheels up! Joby Aviation Inc.’s electric air taxis are taking to the skies this week, flying between John F. Kennedy International Airport and Manhattan to prove how quiet they are. The demonstration trips — which will hold pilots but no passengers — are part of a new federal program to accelerate air taxi integration in the US. Joby plans to start shuttling passengers in New York, Texas, and Florida later this year, and the company’s CEO promises the zero-emission aircraft are “a hundred times quieter” than helicopters and have a sound that’s “more of a whoosh.”

🧠 All in your head: Motif Neurotech announced that the FDA has approved a trial of its brain implant, which uses electrical stimulation to treat depression. The device is, per Wired, about the size of a blueberry. It's placed in the skull above the brain’s protective membrane during a 20-minute procedure, no brain surgery required. It can be charged with a hat, which patients wear during 10- to 20-minute treatment sessions, initially taking place several times per day before tapering off.

🐸 Ribbit: The Loveland Frogman, described by Ohio legislators as a “frog-like, bipedal creature” that stands ~4 feet tall, was supposedly spotted twice in March 1972, then again by two Pokémon Go players in 2016. Despite a more logical story about a large iguana, the legend has spawned books, movies, merchandise, and more, all contributing to Loveland, Ohio's economy. Now, a new bill is proposing the creature as Ohio’s official state cryptid. Do other states have official cryptids? No. Should they? Obviously, yes.

MORE NEWS TO KNOW

That’s a lot of dishes: Snabbit, an Indian startup offering on-demand home services, raised $56m. The platform says it processes 40k+ jobs per day across its 15k+ workers.
Good hair day: Pharma company Veradermics announced promising results from its latest trial of its hair regrowth pill. The active ingredient is minoxidil, which is typically applied topically, but can cause redness and irritation.
The feast gets fancier: Startup Golden Child raised $37m to launch its luxury dog food brand, including two “five-star” products: frozen meals and a shelf-stable, $20 liquid “drizzle” sure to blow your pup’s collar off.
Bright idea: Brain-computer interface startup Neurable is transitioning to a licensing model, likely spurring an influx of brain-scanning computer gadgets with its tech embedded.

FROM PITCH TO PROFIT

How to pitch to win

Those without investor-ready pitches are just people with ideas.

This is Shaan Puri’s fundraising deck, stitched into a Claude Skill. Just start a chat to generate a 15-slide .pptx file that really sells your story.

Pitch to win

THE BIG IDEA

Several people in white pants and red jackets building a human tower.

The teetering tower of team building

Trust falls. Improv workshops. Rage rooms.

If the mere mention of team-building activities elicits groans — brace yourself for the latest: climbing on the boss's shoulders.

Companies in Spain are clambering to join the newest fad: castells — human towers built of co-workers, per The Wall Street Journal.

Climbing the corporate castell

Dating back to the 18th century, the Catalan tradition of castells is an impressive symbol of collaboration, unity, and communal strength.

Teamtowers, which leads castell workshops, contends the experience fosters shared leadership, trust, communication, and commitment. And participants, ranging from Ikea employees to tech workers, seem to agree.

While some team building activities may seem silly, awkward, or trivial, studies show they can be effective.

Workplace isolation derailed productivity by up to 21%, according to Gallup.
Group bonding activities led to a 16% increase in how meaningful employees judged their work to be, according to Harvard Business School.
A Harvard study found that the "best predictors of productivity were a team’s energy and engagement outside formal meetings." The study also found social time was deeply critical to team performance, leading to 50% improvements in communication.

Risky business

While there are potential benefits to team building — and a multibillion-dollar industry that also benefits — there are downsides.

Physically demanding activities like castells, escape rooms, and, yes, flying trapeze, risk ostracizing employees with disabilities (visible or not) or other limitations. (Not to mention the risk of injury.)
A recent study reveals that nearly half of employees find "forced fun" activities to be uncomfortable. They can feel like a performance review, while ignoring the diversity that makes a great team.
Activities can feel like a flashy fix that glosses over fundamental team or leadership issues.

As the return-to-office push continues to intensify, we're bound to see increasingly outlandish team building activities designed to rebuild connections or lure workers back. After all, trust falls over Zoom don't work too well.

Guess we'll be seeing you from the top of the castell.

🔗

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

The sport spiking profits: Hundreds of small colleges are on the brink of financial collapse. But there’s an unlikely hero saving them: men’s volleyball.

NEWSWORTHY NUMBER

Share of Gen Zers who say they use marijuana regularly, according to a survey by online writing platform EduBirdie, including 30% who indulge daily and many who are even baking their vice into the workday.

Now, if you’re starting to question your young co-worker’s bloodshot eyes, it could very well be the result of staring at a screen all day, but with 35% admitting to getting high while working remotely and 17% when in the office, your guess is as good as ours.

Plus, toking on the job doesn't necessarily make them bad employees, at least not in their minds: 22% insist it improves their performance.

HOW YOU HUSTLE

Our readers are always cooking up cool ideas. Here’s our weekly spotlight on a Hustle reader working on something big.

Who: Roza Ghamari

What: Healink AI

The elevator pitch: “Healink uses AI to help dental patients understand and complete their treatments — raising acceptance rates and recovering lost revenue for practices.”

The problem they’re trying to solve: “Dental patients often leave appointments confused about their treatment plans, so only one in three recommended treatments get completed. This low treatment acceptance leads to massive revenue loss, about $1m per practice per year.”

One truly innovative thing they’re doing: “We’ve built an AI system that understands a patient’s full treatment plan and proactively guides them step-by-step to completion.”

Biggest win: “We helped our practices increase their acceptance rate by 30%.”

What are you working on? Tell us here.

AROUND THE WEB

📅 On this day: In 2011, Prince William of Wales married Catherine Middleton.

🗺️ History: A collection of 200k+ maps dating from 1550 to now.

🎧 Music: A collection of concert recordings dating back to 1984.

🧬 Game: Play a game, contribute to science.

🐈 Aww: Like a horror movie, but cute.

SHOWER THOUGHT

The laundry pile exhibits asymptotic behavior. You can get close to zero but never actually reach it (unless you do laundry naked). SOURCE

Today's email was brought to you by Juliet Bennett Rylah, Danny Jensen, and Singdhi Sokpo.

Editing by: Sara "Give me a boost?" Friedman.

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🧗 Climbing the corporate tower