You've been drinking wrong

Warm, cold, cheesy? Nope ...

Hello Wonderful. The lazy days of summer are a recurring daydream. What lies ahead for us is more like the ant and the grasshopper as we labor to launch local city groups (TW.Seattle is our fourth), prepare for our women's summit, and prep for GP's upcoming book on Perennials. Thanks to those of you who joined our first Los Angeles connection event last Tuesday at Kim G's pad. Meeting our generous, dazzling, and helpful readers in the flesh never ceases to amaze.   The What List  May 31, 2018 by Gina Pell + Amy Parker 100% Editorial picks. No pay for play. Ever. The Book.  If you're looking for an easily digestible, lightly Sci-Fi beach read for summer, try The Oracle Year by Charles Soule about a young man who suddenly develops the gift of prophecy. He starts a website with his no-fail predictions and the whole world goes bananas. The Article.  Our friend Nilofer Merchant, author of the book we raved about last Fall called The Power of Onlyness, has written an inspiring new essay which distills the ideas in her book called To Whom Do You Belong? It's an important lesson about the value and power we derive from our own personal histories. The Wine.  Turns out we've been drinking it wrong this whole time.  The Talk.  Jada Pinkett Smith is warm, wise, funny, beautiful, and open in her new Fb show Red Table Talk, which runs the gamut from motherhood to marriage to bodies, booty, and boys. The show has an intimate, girlfriend-y vibe with perspectives from three generations of women (Jada's mom Adrienne and her daughter Willow are co-stars). H/T to our friend Traci M. who suggested it in our TW.W group. #soperennial The Study. The Wisdom Study seeks to improve breast cancer screening and needs 100,000 participants for their clinical study to determine if yearly mammograms are necessary or whether a more personalized approach is better. They have nearly 14,000 women in their study so far. You can join us in helping to improve science here.   _____   MEET THE PERENNIALS The Perennials book production process is underway. Interview #1 featured Norman Lear, the legendary American television writer and producer who brought us the iconic shows: All In the Family, Good Times, The Jeffersons, Maude, and more. He's a 95-year-old optimist who describes himself as Perennial because he meets a person wherever they are, regardless of age: "I'm the peer of whomever I'm talking to. [If] you're twelve, I'm twelve." We are seeking Perennials of ALL ages who are curious, ever-blooming, always-learning, limitless, adventurous, interested and interesting people who evolve themselves and in turn evolve the world around them. Norman Lear and Emma Gonzalez are prime Perennial examples but the people we seek certainly don't have to be famous. Nominate a Perennial here.   _____    "Just don't give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong."  — Ella Fitzgerald   _____ Love, Amy + Gina Instagram Facebook Website Twitter Copyright © 2018 The What All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: 600 Harrison Street, Suite 100 San Francisco, CA  94107. You can reach us by email here. Is The What not your thing? Sorry to see you go. Please unsubscribe here.

It pays to be meeker

Hotshot VC Mary Meeker gave her annual in-depth presentation about the digital landscape, and we have the takeaways. The Hustle Thur, May 31 Brought to you by Drift… 24/7 customer tender. The Meeker shall inherit the earth If securities analysts were pop music stars, Mary Meeker would be bigger than Beyonce. Yesterday, the VC and former Wall Street whiz delivered her annual internet trends report to a crowd of adoring fans at the Code conference in California. Meeker's rapid-fire, 30-min, 294-slide presentation (61 slides shorter than last year's) left the whole stadium of Meeker-maniacs hungry for more of her sweet, sweet tech wisdom. You can't Meek this stuff up For all of you Meeker groupies out there who didn't get tickets to the big show, we summarize some of her juiciest riffs: Lots of people use the internet: People with internet (51%) now outnumber people without it -- so it's hard to find new users, but easier to get old users to use new features like online payment (60% of sales are digital) or voice recognition (30m+ use Alexa). The internet has a privacy paradox: Users want privacy, but 79% will give up data for good services. Then companies with good services get more data -- and more money (FB revenue per user doubled since 2015).  Jobs won't be stolen by robots: Retail jobs replaced farm jobs -- now, freelance jobs will replace factory jobs. Openings are at a 17-year high, with freelance growing 3x faster than the average. AI is making all big tech look the same: Growing 18% YoY, tech R&D is 2x any other sector. AI personalization dominates, pressuring companies to be 1-stop shops (Google's expanding from ads into e-commerce while Amazon's doing the opposite). Ignore the Meek-speak at your own risk There's a reason Meeker rose to the top of the charts in tech industry forecasting -- she's usually right.  In 2004, Meeker predicted that internet advertising was under monetized compared to print newspapers and that data-driven targeted user advertising would expand -- and we all know how that ended up. In the past, she's also placed early bets on some other companies whose names you may recognize, like Google, Amazon, Airbnb, Apple, Spotify, Square, Microsoft, Snap, Alibaba, and Adobe. That's what we call a Meek-drop   23andMe files a patent infringement lawsuit to chop down Ancestry's family tree DNA-testing startup 23andMe filed a lawsuit against its biggest competitor in the genome-at-home genealogy market, Ancestry, in an effort to establish a lead in the race for DNA dominance.  The startup claims that old-timer Ancestry copied its patented saliva-based relative discovery method -- and also asked the court to remove the company's trademark on "Ancestry" because it's too "generic." Genes are super trendy this season The DNA kit market is expected to reach $7.7B by 2020 -- last year, 15m people had their DNA analyzed in order to determine their geneology. 23andMe was the first company to offer direct-to-consumer DNA testing when it rolled out its saliva-based kits -- but since then a number of competitors have followed them into the fray. 23andMe's beef with Ancestry goes waaaaay back Ancestry was founded back in 1983, as a database for historical genealogy information gathered from public records. But, after 23andMe rolled out testing kits in 2007, Ancestry developed its own test. By 2017, Ancestry's program (7m tested) had dwarfed 23andMe's (3m tested). Now 23andMe, which still has the most cutting edge testing technology (and the only FDA cancer-screening approval in the industry), hopes that its lawsuit (which will likely provoke a countersuit) can knock Ancestry off its pedestal long enough to scale its business operations to compete. But keep your genes on -- as these two double-helix dynamos duke it out, as many as 10 new (and questionable) DNA kit options will hit the market every day. Ditching the genes for a 'suit   A Chinese company now holds the power to more than half the world's lithium supplies Chinese lithium supplier Tianqi Lithium recently paid more than $4B to become the second-largest shareholder in Sociedad Quimica y Minera (SQM), a Chilean mining company that specializes in the precious metal needed to make lithium-ion batteries…  And now, Chile has excavated some drama  In March, the Chilean government filed a complaint with antitrust regulators, worried that giving Tianqi so much control over lithium could viciously "distort the market." So, the Chinese government did what any industrial powerhouse would do -- threaten their way to a deal and send a rather charged warning that blocking it could harm their "bilateral relations."  The subtext: You wouldn't want to harm your bilateral relations with a certain industrial powerhouse, now would you, Chile? Or maybe they would... Every smartphone and fully electric car in the world is powered by lithium-ion technology, and, as the world continues to buy more, industry analysts predict that the lithium-ion battery market is set to grow at an astonishing pace of 19% per year. What's more, China wants electric cars to make up 20% of all new vehicles sold in the country by 2025, up from just 3% in 2017. According to Quartz, if the deal finalizes, China could potentially buy SQM's lithium at lower than market costs, which would affect the profits the Chilean government makes on lithium sales (AKA, this is about taxes). Long story short, it looks like Chile's argument for price distortion is valid, and now they have until August to decide whether they want to rock China's lithium-powered boat. Recharging the market   Bird is reportedly flapping its electric wings to a $1B valuation As Bloomberg first reported, the hit electric scooter company that first launched in Los Angeles is reportedly raising $150m in new financing. Bird already raised $100m on a $300m valuation back in March -- the same month that Bird dive-bombed their scooters all over the big ponds of San Francisco, San Jose, and Washington, D.C. The most recent round will value the company at a chill $1Bill, soon making Bird the first unicorn in the space. The scooter race is on, and Bird has the lead in its talons Bird and other scooter startups, including Lime and Spin, are racing to raise cash as they blanket US city sidewalks with their respective scooter brands. Expansion in the scooter biz is expensive and poised to be fiercely competitive (Lyft is reportedly exploring getting into the scooter biz as well). Currently, Bird nemesis, Lime, has already raised $132m, and is reportedly looking to raise $500m more (via Axios). But competition and funds aren't the only hurdles This scooter-eat-scooter competition comes as city governments rack their brains over how to handle the new scooter storm. In San Francisco, Bird, Lime, and Spin have been notified they must remove their scooters from the streets no later than June 4, pending permit approval.  According to TechCrunch, the SF Municipal Transportation Agency will notify them when they will be able to release their scooters back into the wild.  Think of it as a temporary wing clipping. When's Razor getting in the mix?     things you should... 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THROW YOUR NAME IN THE HAT → GET THE DOOR: It's the 6-pack you ordered from Saucey, Free 30-min Delivery There's really nothing worse than a house full of friends and fridge full of -- well, nothing. Good times shouldn't end because you've run dry. Beer, wine, liquor, mixers -- Saucey delivers alcohol right to your door so you can keep your night rolling. With no minimums, 30-min delivery, and no delivery fees, what are you waiting for? BOOZE ME PLEASE → TRAVEL: And chill with ViewSonic's M1 portable projector, $299.99 Lookin' to watch some high-quality content across the dark wall of a moonless sky? Well, with the ViewSonic M1 Portable LED Projector, the bulb's so bright, you can. Equipped with a built-in battery and dual Harman Kardon speakers, when it comes to watching flix on the move, this baby is the master of all things 'sit back and relax.' 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Ok, Drift can't physically clone your best salesperson, but it can charm customers just like them 24/7/365.  Drift's automated chat platform engages customers in real time, answering questions, sharing resources, and even booking meetings with the right sales agent -- all at scale.   Basically, Drift handles all the upper-funnel-dirty-work for you, so your marketing and sales teams can focus on what really matters: Closing the deal.  That's why 100k+ businesses trust Drift to capture 15% more qualified leads and shorten sales cycle times. But hey, don't take our word for it. Try it for yourself. For real, talk with Drift right now on their site. It's a great listener, we promise.    Now Playing: Lake Superior, The Arcs. If our side projects were as successful as Dan Auerbach's, we'd be sandwich shop moguls by now. 0 SHARE THE HUSTLE REFERRALS http://ambassadors.thehustle.co/?ref=4991210e5d YOUR UNIQUE URL Zack Crockett NEWS WRITER Wes Schlagenhauf NEWS WRITER Conor Grant NEWS WRITER Kolby Hatch AD WRITER Lindsey "Still running on Duracell" Quinn MANAGING EDITOR Carrie Desofa Moving Van Driver SUBSCRIBE JOBS ADVERTISE EVENTS SHOP Join our Facebook community → You opted in by signing up, attending an event, or through divine intervention. 771 CLEMENTINA STREET, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103, UNITED STATES • 415.506.7210 Never want to hear from us again? Break our hearts and unsubscribe