Plant HR, Writing Roots, & Plain Tool 🪴

How many houseplants have you killed? Be honest!

Plants can sometimes be more high-maintenance than your zaniest colleagues or exes. Give 'em too much water, and it's a one-way ticket to Plant Heaven. Forget to let them soak up some sunshine, and they're auditioning for roles in "The Phantom of the Garden." 

If we can’t tend to our home plants well, what must become of those poor office greens left to fend for themselves in tundra-level AC?

Worry not. Startups are trying to resolve this problem as well — by bringing plant caretakers to the office.

They’re called plantpreneurs. 

Startups like Greenery NYC and My City Plants help clients choose greenery that will thrive in their space, and design and maintain plant installations for their clients. They will water and trim your plants, fertilize the soil, clean your flower pots, and even replace the plants in case they dies or fall sick. 

They also boast of an impressive client list — Etsy, Bank of America, Netflix, and Google. (image below)

Is this a trend we should care about? 

Research shows that we should. Even small doses of nature can help employees feel happier and boost performance. Living walls and indoor farms are have already been growing as an industry. And now, people are up-skilling themselves with plantation, horticulture, and garden design degrees to grab those juicy “Planter” job-titles before they become a huge thing. In fact, Brooklyn Botanic Garden has also experienced increased interest in its horticulture certificate program, which now has a waitlist, per NYT.

Gen AI powered literature has become quite ubiquitous in the last few months. But surprisingly, it’s not the Americans that are producing the most AI-written books — it’s actually the Europeans. 

The land of Renaissance classics, Shakespearean tragedies and Greek epics, is now moving away from it’s traditional writing roots. 

Could the AI written publications complete with the classics in maintaining popularity (or even relevance) for centuries? Or will the humans in the 2300s use us as a case study for shitty literature? 

While you ponder over that during your evening tea, remember that the same AI is also generating a ton of software jobs around the world. In fact, according to Accel Euroscape research, hiring growth in AI development companies/startups in 2023 has been more than double that in other types of companies.

🔜 That's Too Soon - WeWork plans to file for bankruptcy as early as this week.  

✂️ Only Way Out - The US is going to have to raise taxes to deal with its trillion dollar deficit.

👜 Saving Money - An employee saved his company a million dollars. Here how. And what happened after. 

🍫 Tainted Candies - Consumer Reports found “concerning” levels of lead in 16 of the 48 chocolate products it tested, including Hershey’s cocoa powder and Starbucks’ hot chocolate.

🎒 Too Cool for School - A historically high number of US kids - 1.9 to 2.7 million - are being educated them at home instead.