🍄 Some trippy science

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👋 Good morning. A bit of bad news: You’ve been outbid on that 12.5-foot-tall Tyrannosaurus rex fossil you were eyeing. Bummer. It was good news for Sotheby’s, though, since the auction house fetched $50.1m for the deceased dino. Nicknamed Gus, the T. rex specimen likely lived ~67m years ago and includes elements of 183 bones. Congratulations to the buyer, who is about to have a real conversation starter, and for T. rexes everywhere, who have reclaimed their rightful spot as the most valuable fossil.

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NEWS FLASH

🎸 Metal is proving its mettle: Streams of hard rock songs popped 12% last year (relative to the overall music streaming average of 5%) and Iron Maiden is cashing in — the band sold off half of its master rights, plus a stake in their name, image, and likeness rights, for an undisclosed sum. The buyer, Pophouse Entertainment, which already owns the music rights for the likes of KISS and Tina Turner, will focus on “turbo charging Maiden’s plans for the future.” BTW, need a case for getting your band back together? Per Billboard, Iron Maiden has grossed $681.1m in ticket sales across all tracked concerts dating back to 1984.

🏔 A much-needed thing you’ll hopefully never need: Swiss startup RAROG has developed a portable detection system that’ll aid search-and-rescue missions by picking up radio signals emitted by everyday devices such as smartphones, smartwatches, and fitness trackers. Finding missing persons via mobile networks has its limitations; RAROG’s system would bypass them and signals should be detectable through snow, rubble, or dense vegetation. It’s being tested in the Swiss Alps now, but don’t just wander off out there please.

🛩 The sky’s less limited for a startup where the sky’s the limit: Virginia-based Electra has cleared one FAA hurdle with its innovative EL9 aircraft, a hybrid-electric flying contraption that can pull off vertical takeoffs and landings like a helicopter, but can also land like a plane on extra-short runways. Like, half-a-soccer-field short (150 feet or less). Electra has banked ~$9B in pre-orders for the nine-person craft, which is on track for test flights next year.

MORE NEWS TO KNOW

Still catching ’em all: Ten years after its launch, Pokémon Go has racked up 1B+ downloads and still sees millions of daily players and live events spanning 60+ countries.
Speaking of auctions… if you didn’t grab that aforementioned T. rex., there’s still time to nab the felt-tip pen that Buzz Aldrin used to save the Apollo 11 mission after a circuit breaker switch snapped off. It’s for sale at Sotheby’s alongside other space memorabilia.
Building something big: Construction startup TerraFirma, founded by two former SpaceX engineers, raised $115m to develop its remotely controlled construction equipment to one day build on Mars.
No more arm wrestling: United Airlines unveiled a new type of seating in its Economy Plus cabins that transforms the middle seat into a shared table, leaving window and aisle seat passengers with more room.

DIG THESE DIGITS

The numbers shaping tech, business, and society

See the world through the eyes of Steph

Longtime readers know Steph Smith as the architect of Trends. Since then, she’s taken her predict-the-future playbook to a16z and Nvidia (via acqui-hire of Groq).

100+ Digits is one of her most ambitious data projects yet, spanning era-defining signals across business, tech, energy, and health.

Find opportunity everywhere:

Human legos: Microplastics are ~0.5% of our brains. Most of us merrily consume about a credit card of plastic each week.
Liquid gold: Water desalination costs have fallen over 50% since 2000.
Cyber crime vectors: “Pig butchering” is a $75B crypto scam industry… and “face swap hacks” have risen by 700%.
Space junk: Jettisoned debris litters Earth’s atmosphere, dinging (or perforating) innocent satellites and rooftops.
City infrastructure: Over 17k New York state bridges (99.97%!) need some repairs. But a few of them are fine.

Visit the digits

THE BIG IDEA

Can scientists build a better trip?

Ever wonder about the first person to try hallucinogenic mushrooms in the wild? I mean, surely they were stoked they didn't die, but... whooooaaaah, maaaaan...

For millennia, humans have experimented with the multitude of mind-altering substances we've encountered in nature.

And for just as long, we've been tinkering with those magic mushrooms, peculiar plants, and intoxicating toads in pursuit of a better trip.

Now, researchers and startups are increasingly bringing nature into the lab, tailoring naturally derived psychedelic drugs to create better therapeutic experiences, in some cases with shorter or less intense trips, per The Atlantic.

What a long, strange trip it's been

Psychoactive substances have long been used by indigenous cultures for healing, but it wasn't until the 1950s that Western medicine saw the potential for psychedelic-assisted therapy to treat a variety of conditions, including depression, anxiety, addiction, and PTSD.

Much of that psychedelic research took a bad trip in the mid-1960s with prohibitive legislation and later the classification of psychedelics as Schedule 1 substances with no medical value.

But as research restrictions have been lifted in recent decades, we've entered what some call a psychedelic renaissance with hundreds of clinical trials.

As support for psychedelic research has grown, so has investment: the psychedelic drugs market was valued at $4.13B in 2025 and is expected to grow to $14.9B by 2035.

Down the rabbit hole

While some startups in the field have struggled to gain interest from investors, some have managed to navigate a path forward.

Sensorium Therapeutics is testing a succulent-derived drug for anxiety and recently raised a $25m Series A extension.
Reunion Neuroscience recently raised $133m for a psychedelic compound similar to psilocybin to address postpartum depression with a shortened high.
Mindstate Design Labs, which has raised $11m+, is using AI to develop psychedelics that are milder and more targeted for therapeutic uses.
Gilgamesh Pharma, which is developing a cardiac-safe analog of ibogaine for substance use disorders and a drug related to ketamine for major depressive disorder (MDD), raised $60m.

Meanwhile, some biotech companies, like Transcend Therapeutics, are being acquired by major pharmaceutical companies, indicating a growing industry interest in psychedelics.

Further investment and research into psychedelic drugs for therapy shows promise for those who could benefit from them.

Just be glad you weren't the first person to try Lilliputian mushrooms.

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HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Thousands of people are experiencing AI psychosis… Meet the guy you call when AI breaks your brain.

NEWSWORTHY NUMBER

Share of urine tests that came back positive for marijuana use last year, up from 3.9% in 2021, according to new data from Quest Diagnostics. Though that might seem like a modest increase, other data also shows the number of 420-friendly workers is getting higher: marijuana-positive hair tests, which are less common but can trace drug use over a longer period, jumped to 15%, while random screenings hit 21%, per The Wall Street Journal.

As a result, many employers, from Citigroup to Home Depot, have stopped testing for the substance, largely in recognition of the fact that many qualified candidates chill as hard as they work. A 2024 study found that among companies that tested, 44% faced recruiting challenges.

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: Brian Hemmert

What: Crate Culture Co.

The elevator pitch: “Crate Culture Co. tells the incredible stories of independent record stores. A new store is featured each month, with their full story on Instagram and an exclusive t-shirt and sticker for members only.”

The problem they’re trying to solve: “Independent record stores have incredible stories, inventory, and community value, but they don’t always have an easy way to reach new fans beyond their local market. This project brings their local stores and stories to the world. And give people cool T-shirts to wear.”

One truly innovative thing they’re doing: “We’re turning independent record stores into part of the product itself. The end product of a T-shirt and sticker is the collector’s piece based on the amazing story of each store. But the story is the anchor to the whole business.”

What are you working on? Tell us here.

AROUND THE WEB

📅 On this day: In 2006, San Francisco-based podcast company Odeo launched SMS service Twttr — later becoming Twitter — to the public.

💬 That’s cool: A generator for phrases that have never been said before.

🛠️ Resource: Hiring OS is a 6-phase system devised by our former CEO Jordan DiPietro to help founders go from open role to signed A-player in 6–8 weeks. It's the exact process he used to hire teams at The Motley Fool, The Hustle, and Hampton.

📩 Newsletter: Profit Snack delivers bite-sized case studies and business intelligence every Friday.

🐱 Aww: Biiig stretch!

SHOWER THOUGHT

Gen Z might be the last generation to really remember the world without AI, just like millennials/Gen X were with accessible computers. SOURCE

Today's email was brought to you by Singdhi Sokpo and Danny Jensen.

Editing by: Sara "Have a safe trip" Friedman.

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