🔥 Robotaxis want the world to burn

Don’t stress, our anxiety is big business

Is your desk littered with discarded fidget spinners, coloring books, and maybe even some slime?

If so, you’re probably an American consumer — and you’re not alone.

With anxiety disorders affecting 40m US adults (19% of the population), and young people even more likely to experience mental health symptoms, alleviating stress means big business for brands.

And companies aren’t shying away from the challenge:

• Wearables like Apollo Neuro ($349), Muse (~$294), and Sensate ($299) promise to track and reduce stress.
• Coloring books, weighted blankets, and fidget toys of all kinds are sold as much-needed distractions.
• Supplements made with ingredients like ashwagandha, melatonin, and CBD are peddled on social media as sleep aids and anxiety cures.

While there’s no shortage of products guaranteeing to keep us calm, the anxiety industry has little regulatory oversight and the FDA doesn’t approve supplements.

Then why do these things sell?

Because consumers will try just about anything to relieve their mounting stress. And, importantly, because it’s not easy to get help.

A shortage of mental health workers and inferior insurance coverage means waitlists and costs are piling up, making mental health services out of reach for many.

Though telehealth businesses are trying to fill the void:

• The app Headspace has a range of content for managing anxiety, and its corporate offering, Ginger, brings the service to employees at enrolled companies.
• Platforms like BetterHelp, Talkspace, and Lyra connect users with mental health services online.

Plus, if talk therapy doesn’t work: There’s lots of VC funding and research flowing into the startups looking to treat mental health disorders with psychedelics.

Today in AI: A Washington Post analysis found 1k+ companies across numerous industries discussed AI in their quarterly reports this summer, compared to 40 between 2015 and 2016.

Is the AI boom all hype? Nvidia’s earnings suggest not: The chipmaker reported $13.5B in Q2 revenue, bringing its market cap to a record $1.25T.

Then again… after Nvidia’s earnings came out, one analyst said Nvidia would be the “most important company to civilization” over the next decade, so we may not be out of the overhyped weeds yet.

Warner Bros. Discovery’s new free 24/7 news service, CNN Max, will debut Sept. 27 on Max. This comes ~16 months after the company shut down CNN+.

Fast-fashion team-up: Shein will acquire ~33% of Forever 21 operator Sparc Group, which will acquire a minority stake in Shein. The move expands Shein’s US presence, while Forever 21 will sell some items via Shein’s website.

Malaysia Airlines flight 370 may have drifted further south than expected, per a report analyzing barnacles found on airplane debris that washed ashore on an island near Africa. The plane disappeared in 2014.

T-Mobile will eliminate ~5k positions, representing ~7% of its workforce. Cost-cutting efforts are also underway at rival wireless carriers AT&T and Verizon.

Where there’s smoke, there’s an autonomous vehicle blocking a fire

San Francisco is on the cutting edge of driverless vehicle tech. One group isn’t pleased about it, per NPR — the city’s first responders.

• Two weeks ago: Regulators greenlit GM’s Cruise and Google’s Waymo robotaxi expansion in SF, allowing them to serve live, paying customers 24/7.
  • Opposed but overruled: the city’s police and fire departments, which cited dozens of incidents where self-driving cars interrupted rescue operations.
• One week ago: Right on cue, a Cruise vehicle collided with a fire truck en route to an emergency. (Regulators halved Cruise’s active fleet, pending an investigation.)

What’s going wrong?

Per The Los Angeles Times, robotaxis have:

• Run through emergency tape, straight into downed electrical wires.
• Forced a firetruck to back up and reroute to a blaze.
• Entered an active fire scene, then parked on top of a fire hose.
• Blocked firehouse driveways. Twice.

Neither company has offered a reason why their vehicles have responded this way, per NPR.

Waymo claims its cars are designed to identify, and yield to, emergency vehicles, among other built-in precautions — like a 24-hour hotline to connect first responders and Waymo staff.

But every second counts in an emergency, and SF Fire Chief Jeanine Nicholson says firefighters “cannot be paying attention to an autonomous vehicle when [they’ve] got ladders to throw.”

Things may get more unwieldy soon

Cruise and Waymo has asked the California Public Utilities Commission, which dismissed San Francisco’s first responders’ concerns, to weigh in on expanded testing in more cities, including Los Angeles.

• SFFD fields ~160k calls per year; LAFD responded to 505k+ calls last year.

Trust the LA residents behind this newsletter: The city’s drivers need no help making the roads absolutely impossible for emergency vehicles.

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We wish aesthetics mattered less, but people just can’t seem to forget excellent color combinations.

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Just pick, plug, and run with what stuns.

With the first pick in the CEO draft, The Hustle selects…

Earlier this week, we checked in on Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, who is riding the AI boom to higher esteem, including our praise as a solid first pick in any CEO draft.

What’s that? With fantasy football draft season upon us, we started musing about a fantasy boardroom game (and how that might even work).

• Fantasy football is about compiling a team that puts up the best stats; any hypothetical fantasy CEO draft would then be about execs who can generate shareholder-pleasing numbers.

Whichever leader you believe could best step into any generic company and take it to a historically great next quarter — that’s your top pick.

So, who are we taking with the No. 1 pick in our draft? (Sorry in advance, Satya.)

Juliet selects Yvon Chouinard

“He recently retired, but I’d take the ex-Patagonia CEO because he seems like a mostly chill guy who just wants to hang out in nature. Would it make shareholders happy? Depends on their goals. Would it make anyone who always plays a Druid in ‘D&D’ happy? Yes.”

Ben selects Craig Jelinek

“The Costco CEO has led a well-oiled, rotisserie chicken-fueled $237B machine for the last decade — one Bloomberg called the ‘cheapest, happiest company in the world.’ No frills, well-treated employees, a famously homicidal stance on maintaining a $1.50 hot dog combo? Love that energy; it’d get the job done anywhere.”

Sara selects Dr. Lisa Su

“The CEO of Advanced Micro Devices is my pick. She transformed a struggling business into a thriving one, deeply understands her company’s products as an engineer herself, and was a badass the first woman to become the world’s highest-paid CEO (we love to see it).”

Mark… is trading his top pick?

“CEOs are overvalued. I would trade my pick for capital to hire other workers and use AI for my CEO.”

How about your pick? Tell us who you’d take and why, and we’ll report back on any game-changing picks.

🍜 On this day: In 1958, Momofuku Ando, founder of Nissin Food Products, marketed the first package of precooked instant noodles in “Chikin Ramen” flavor.

📃 Useful: A website that lets you modify PDFs.

💭 Blog: How to figure out if entrepreneurship is right for you.

🦒 That’s interesting: A reticulated giraffe was born without spots at the Brights Zoo in Tennessee. An extremely rare occurrence, the last time this happened was in Tokyo in 1972.

🐶 Aww: And now, an excellent travel solution.