Young Judgement, Acting Busy, Weird Chocolate 🍫

How would you feel about a plate of mushrooms? 

No, we don’t mean the wild party shrooms. We mean the real, functional mushrooms. They are far more versatile than we might assume, finding their way into a more innocent territory - chocolate. A cluster of startups have been artfully incorporating them into delectable treats.

But why mushrooms in chocolates? 

Well, functional mushrooms have been linked to a range of health benefits, minus any magical effects. For instance, Vehicle Mushrooms and Fungirl's chocolate bars are infused with lion's mane mushrooms, offering improved mental clarity and reduced anxiety. Meanwhile, Alice, a wellness brand (image below), sells mushroom-infused chocolates in tin cans, tailored for specific needs such as better sleep or enhanced focus. Even traditional chocolate brands are embracing this trend, according to The New York Times. 

But this isn't a novel concept – it's an age-old practice. Mushrooms have been integral to Chinese medicine for centuries, and the fusion of cacao and mushrooms can be traced back to ancient Mesoamerican cultures.

Snap judgements by young employees. Startups seem to like that. 

In fact, startups are setting up advisory panels consisting of Gen-Z members to conduct consumer research and evaluate crucial decisions.

Moon Juice, a wellness company headquartered in Culver City, established a Gen-Z board comprising over 20 individuals in November 2022. The board convenes monthly, offering insights into Gen-Z's psychographic inclinations and expenditure patterns. 

The result? Moon Juice recently introduced Mini Dew beverages after consulting its Gen-Z board on price and preference matters.

But it’s not just startups. Even VCs and startup consultants have Gen-Z boards now. Chicago-based public relations agency Ascend employs a Gen-Z panel to guide her startup clientele. Dcdx, an Austin-based Gen-Z consulting firm offers advice to a spectrum of brands on marketing strategies to target young audiences.

The discussions within these panels often revolve around trending topics on platforms like TikTok, personal ideologies, and how Gen-Z interacts with technology and products on a day-to-day basis. 

Problems: This approach can result in wasted efforts and time, as employees strive to make a show of their presence before their superiors. It’s also the reason loud labourers exist in the workplace. Furthermore, companies might end up hiring more people with pretence than those who do actual work. 

The report also highlighted an intriguing twist: a majority of workers express a desire for an alternative approach to measuring their productivity. Instead of activity metrics, those surveyed want to be evaluated based on KPI, tasks completed or problems solved.

In fact, workers are still very much in favor of asynchronous work — meaning working on tasks on their own rather than in real-time or in group meetings.

ChatGPT’s usage has started to temper. It’s total web users fell for the first time in June. Data from Similar Web, via Insider, revealed that traffic to the site dropped more than 7%, and new users fell by almost a third — a sign that ChatGPT may have lost some of its novelty. 

Even arenas where the most fervent fans of the tech once gathered have started to empty. Posters on the reddit forum r/chatgpt have also walked away from discussions lately. Daily posts and comments now hover around 200-300, a colossal drop from the 5800 peak in May.

⌨️ Keyboard Leak - AI with 95% accuracy can steal passwords by listening to your keyboard presses, according to a study by Cornell University.