A General Catalyst M&A
The two funds are calling it "joining forces"
Good morning everyone. I spent the weekend in Maine with my lovely friends, and went rock climbing, and had ice cream, and looked at leaves, and hiked. I also won a poker again, once again, undefeated. Maybe we’ll have a Feed Me poker game for my letter anniversary, which is November 1st. If any of you have other ideas for an anniversary, let me know. I’d love to meet all of you, or at least some of you.
Some news:
I discovered this Parisian brand that makes merch for restaurants. I guess instead of sourcing their own merch, hospitality establishments can hit up GiftShop to do the production of sweatshirts and other typical gift shop items. So if you wanted an $120 Paul Bert sweatshirt (wild price), or a $23 Zabar’s tote, I guess you can now find it all in one place? They’re currently in beta, but restaurants can apply to be on the platform. Interesting problem to solve.
Gohar World figured out how to build a holiday pop-up that everyone posts on Instagram. Wallpaper made from photos of the South of France.
And my holiday pop-up letter is coming soon, because it looks like there will be a lot this year. Including Danielle Bernstein’s.
Something weird is happening in American psychology. “We may be surprised at what happens in the coming decades; we may end up with concepts of wellness and illness that do not exist today.” I read this essay by Toby Shorin last night, which I thought was great as most of his writing is. As I decided to include that essay as a link in this newsletter, I saw the Times publish a piece about the mental health influencer team Harvard is building. Again, that was mental health influencer team. Guys this story is really weird. The surgeon general has described the mental health of young people in America as “the defining public health crisis of our time.” For this vulnerable, hard-to-reach population, social media serves as a primary source of information. And so, for a few months this spring, Harvard brought in mental health influencers to become part of a field experiment, in which social scientists attempted to inject evidence-based content into their feeds. You can read what happens next. Maybe I’ll elaborate on my thoughts (which are similar to my thoughts about bringing hundreds of influencers into Biden’s White House) in another letter.
A Citibank banker was fired for expensing his wife's lunch and then lying about it. He was asked whether he had shared a meal of “pasta pesto and a bolognese” with his partner but denied this. Doesn’t sound like a fireable offense, it does sound like a tip New York Magazine would’ve like ahead of FT.
