Gm. It's always humbling to know that no matter how good you are at something Rafael Nadal has you beat.

The Spaniard won his 14th French Open over the weekend bringing his record at Roland Garos to a staggering 112-3.

Not sure how this relates to the startup world other than the fact that it might inspire you to also do something amazing.

FRESH POWDER

Looking at three funds that recently topped up their coffers.

LAYOFFS

There is light at the end of the layoffs tunnel

Lots of startups have been reducing headcount in a big way in recent months. Cameo, Picasrt, Gemini, Bolt, Klarna, Clubhouse, Superhuman…the list goes on and on. But there are signs that show that the deluge of layoffs is slowing.

The good news

Startup layoffs hit a local maximum last month of 16,000+, per the Layoffs.FYI tracker. Obviously that figure is bad, but it's actually not as bad as the same period during 2020. And while 2020 is an outlier because of the pandemic, it does put things into perspective that we aren’t in all-time-bad territory.

• There is also a pattern to the layoffs: Companies who benefited from pandemic tailwinds thought the pace of growth would carry on forever. When it didn't, they opted for staffing cuts.

So when you see the likes of Cameo, Klarna, and Loom—three names that grew exponentially during the pandemic—they aren’t indicative of the entire startup industry as a whole.

Two other narratives to keep an eye on

Tesla and Coinbase both sent shockwaves through the industry last week when they announced hiring freezes. But even those freezes don’t paint the full picture.

Given their rapid hiring expansion in previous months, Coinbase and Tesla will likely end the year with more employees than they started.

• Elon could actually be taking a page out former General Electric CEO Jack Welch’s playbook. Welch was famous for aggressively pursuing top talent, then cutting the bottom 10%.

Overall, the market still is not employee friendly and layoffs are likely to continue trickling in. But data shows that the deluge is slowing and some narratives may have been a tad overblown.

Bottom line: If you have been laid off recently, we highly recommend reading this piece from Homebrew’s Hunter Walk detailing the steps you should take if you lose your job during a downturn.

ENTERTAINMENT

It’s (not) Morbin' time

Sometimes the internet bands together to do amazing things—things like convince a major film studio to bring back a truly awful vampire superhero film starring Jared Leto to theaters.

A brief history of Morbius meme

After grossing just $170 million at the box office, Morbius seemed fated for the bargain bin at your local WalMart. But then, Morbius memes began popping up all over the internet.

• It’s difficult to put into words exactly what these “It’s Morbin’ time” memes were about per se, but one thing was for certain—Morbius was the butt of the joke.

The story took a hilarious twist when Sony, the studio that produced the movie, saw all the online chatter and made the baffling decision to re-release Morbius in 1,037 theaters nationwide. Over two months after it first opened, Morbius was back and promptly bombed once more.

Bottom line: If Sony’s tone-deafness wasn’t cringe enough, Jared Leto also tried to lean into the joke. He posted a video of him reading a fake script for Morbius 2: It’s Morbin’ Time, which is as uncomfortable as it is viral.

QUICK HITS

Seed Round

Stat: Cathie Wood’s infamous ARK fund has rallied 17% since hitting its bottom on May 11. It’s also outperformed the S&P 500 over that period, which was the norm back in 2020, but rarer than a funny Ricky Gervais joke at this point. Is Cathie back? Is the bottom in? Only time will tell.

Story we’re watching: Apple's developer conference kicks off today with improvements to iOS, new chips, and maybe even some new hardware expected. One major theme to keep an eye on this year—augmented reality. Although it doesn’t sound like Apple will debut the AR headset it's been working on, keep an eye out for other announcements on that front.

Rabbit hole: Why complex systems collapse quicker (Tablet)

WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON

• Tesla plans to lay off 10% of its workforce and pause hiring after Elon said he has a “super bad feeling” about the economy.

• Ahrefs is building a creator-friendly search engine called Yep and has invested $60 million in the project so far.

• Amazon's top consumer exec resigned suddenly just before weekend.

• Twitter cleared the US antitrust review period on its $44 billion deal.

PICK THAT PITCH DECK

Below is an early pitch deck for a company now worth $76 billion.

Can you guess what the company is?

MONDAY MUSING

What is something you’ve never regretted paying more for?

Let us know here and we’ll share some of your answers next week.

FOUNDERS CORNER

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

❌ 10 common mistakes founders make marketing their startups

⚡️ How to never let the feeling of building at warp speed slip away

🗑 How to stop junk mail

NEWS FROM THE HOUSE

Building alone is so 2020

Building with friends is where it's at.

Come live in NYC with 25 other engineers to compete for a chance to win $50,000 at our latest Hack House.

It sounds too good to be true, but Hack House NYC is real and it's coming up in less than two weeks.

Apply here if you're interested.

MEMERY

PICK THAT PITCH DECK ANSWER

Airbnb.