GM! Brett, here! Wanted to pop in and share a little recommendation for an amazing service I've been using - Athena. They basically set you up with an amazing (yet very affordable) full-time executive assistant who helps you manage everything from your email to meeting scheduling and more. Our EA Maria even helps onboard advertisers for Homescreen!

Anyway, we have a pretty sweet deal for Homescreen subscribers - if you sign up before April 30th, you skip the waitlist (it's long!) and get $1,000 off on your second invoice!

🏠 AI

Beyond Words

Hume is taking things in a whole new direction that's low-key mind-blowing.

It can detect human emotions. And I'm not talking about just parsing sentiment from words, which has been a thing for ages. Hume is doing legit emotional intelligence - picking up on vocal tones, facial micro-expressions, and all the subtle cues we use to convey how we're truly feeling.

It's wild to see in action. Hume's CEO Alan Cowen demoed this thing on This Week On Startups. It's spooky accurate at picking up on subtle cues that convey how someone is feeling in that moment.

It instantly recognized when Alan sounded contemplative versus amused. It identified his existential vibe just from vocal inflections.

Even more wild - it could detect specific emotions like nostalgia just from a text sample. Not an easy feat.

So why does this matter? A few reasons:

• Customer support is the obvious low-hanging fruit. Instead of rage-quitting on some clueless chatbot, you get an AI that can sense your frustration and hand you off to a human before you Hulk out. 😠 
  

• Therapy and mental health is another huge area. Hume's AI could act as an affordable, always-available empathetic ear to share struggles with. Kind of like a digital life coach attuned to your emotional needs.

Now the privacy concerns are obvious here. Letting an AI scrutinize your tone, face ticks, and all that is creepy. But, Alan says they're onto that - working on stringent ethical guidelines around consent.

The bigger idea has me intrigued. We keep making AI smarter at crunching data but lack the human/emotional factor. Throwing those capabilities into the mix feels like a needed evolution.

The Big Question: Can Hume find the perfect equilibrium – an AI that's insightful enough to be truly valuable, yet considerate enough that we trust it within our lives? I'm certainly eager to find out.

Robinhood launched its Gold Credit Card

They’re not only going after Apple but ultimately competing with banks like JP Morgan.

Yep. 

Robinhood is ‘banking on’ the ability to turn cash back rewards into stock investments to catch up to Apple’s credit card success.

This card is a game-changer, offering:

• 3% cashback on ALL categories

• 5% cashback on travel

All this with no joining fee and no foreign transaction fees. The catch? You need to be a Gold member to be eligible for this card.

But how can Robinhood afford such generous rewards and still make money? I obviously had to dig in.

Here's what I found:

To me, this offer feels like an incredible steal.

PS: I'm not trying to sell this, lol. But yes, if you sign up here, I will get the card earlier.

🤝 THE LATEST IN…

TECH

• Reddit stock plummets 25% in two days, closes below first-day close.

• Gmail is 20 years old.

• The 'Beastification of YouTube' may be ending soon.

• How BYD evolved from battery maker to electric vehicle juggernaut, surpassing Tesla.

AI

• Amazon adds $2.75 Billion to its stake in Anthropic

• OpenAI unveiled an audio tool that recreates human voices.

• NYC will test AI gun detectors on the subway

• Autonomous robots assist farmers in preparing for the world's largest tulip bloom.

SCIENCE

• The next generation of cancer drugs will be made in space.

• A new startup will try to mine helium-3 on the Moon.

• Curiosity rover searches for new clues about Mars' ancient water.

• The Feds are trying to get plants to extract metals through their roots.

CRYPTO

• The crypto market remains calm as Bitcoin stabilizes at $70k ahead of the halving.

• Texas Bitcoin mining faces backlash over energy costs and environmental concerns.

• Poopcoin's value skyrockets to millions after an airdrop from Doodles creator.

• Social media firm Merkle achieves unicorn valuation after deal with Paradigm.

🏃‍♀️ QUICKIES

Raise: Arrow Markets, a crypto options trading platform, secured $4M in Series A funding to revolutionize options trading and simplify the user experience.

Stat: $30,408. Xiaomi's price for its SU7 electric vehicle ($4k cheaper than Tesla Model 3).

Rabbit Hole: When the VCs say “No” (Marc Andreessen).

🤩 MONDAY MOTIVATION

"Comparison is the deadliest thing we can do to ourselves because we will always come up short." - Simon Sinek

🛠️ FOUNDERS CORNER

The best resources we recently came across that will help you become a better founder, builder, or investor.

🖼️ Rendernet makes it easy to create AI images with character consistency.

🗣️ Rewind is a wearable that captures what you say and hear in the real world and transcribes it entirely on your phone.

🗒️ Tile is an AI-first SQL notebook for building data apps.

💉 DOPAMINE HIT

Chris Martin to Avicii: “You’re so talented, man!”

howsongsarecreated

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