Welcome to the weekend.

Prime Numbers

24.41 — Hurricane Helene brought unprecedented rainfall to the Appalachian region, with Asheville receiving 13.98 inches and Mount Mitchell 24.41 inches over three days, far exceeding one-in-1,000 year amounts and causing billions in damage.

12.66 — Severe drought has caused the Amazon River to reach historic low levels, with the Port of Manaus on the Rio Negro tributary recording just 12.66 meters on Friday, disrupting shipping, hydropower and daily life in Brazil. 

6 — A study of a public pre-K child care program in New Haven found it generated $6 in economic benefits per dollar spent, primarily through increased parental earnings that persisted for at least seven years.

The Benefits of Slowing Down

In a world that glorifies constant hustle, the key to sustainable success and personal fulfillment may lie in slowing down. We resist this counterintuitive approach due to fears of falling behind, missing opportunities or being perceived as lazy in a culture that equates business with worth. However, intentional deceleration offers profound benefits: enhanced creativity, clearer decision-making, reduced stress, and the ability to identify both energy drains and high-impact opportunities. By embracing strategies like unitasking, regular breaks and the power of saying “no,” we can improve our performance, creativity and overall well-being. Finding our own "gardens" — spaces for reflection and rejuvenation — allows us to see the world more clearly and reconnect with the present moment. This practice of strategic slowness paradoxically positions us to move faster and more effectively toward our goals, while allowing us to appreciate the richness of our current experiences. Sahil Bloom (8 minutes)

Pig Butchering

"Pig butchering" scams represent a sinister evolution in cybercrime, blending human trafficking with sophisticated digital fraud. The term refers to the process of "fattening up" victims before "slaughtering" them financially. Scammers build seemingly intimate relationships with targets over time, then introduce lucrative investment opportunities — usually involving cryptocurrency. This long-con approach yields enormous profits, with global losses potentially reaching $75 billion. The scale and complexity of these operations necessitate large workforces, often comprised of trafficked individuals forced to run scams under brutal conditions. As traditional cybercrime becomes less profitable, organized crime groups are pivoting to this insidious blend of emotional manipulation and financial exploitation, creating a humanitarian crisis alongside a digital one. WIRED (9 minutes)

Hospitals Have a Secret

You don’t always have to pay your hospital bill. Jared Walker is letting that secret out. The entrepreneur’s life was thrown into disarray after a family medical crisis. In the wake of it, he was left with the question millions face: How am I going to pay for this? Then he discovered the largely unknown charity care program. It’s a policy mandated in the Affordable Care Act that requires nonprofit hospitals to waive or reduce medical debt for low-income patients. He got on TikTok to tell the world. It went viral. His DMs were flooded with requests for help. So he founded tech nonprofit Dollar For to build software automating the application process. To date, he’s helped crush $61,758,652 in medical debt. Jared’s part of a bigger movement of tech entrepreneurs using their skills to lift up the people who need it most. Want to hear more stories like his? Subscribe to What’s Good in Tech. Fast Forward (Sponsored)

Cooling Earth with Balloons

Imagine controlling Earth's thermostat with a balloon. This seemingly far-fetched idea is becoming reality through stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), a controversial geoengineering technique. By releasing reflective particles into the atmosphere, SAI aims to cool the planet by deflecting sunlight back into space. While the concept shows promise in combating global warming, it raises ethical concerns and potential unforeseen consequences. Startup Make Sunsets is already implementing small-scale SAI experiments, sparking debate about the future of climate intervention and the need for more research to fully understand its impacts. BigThink (11 minutes)

Negative Time

In the bizarre realm of quantum physics, time can flow backwards. A groundbreaking experiment has shown that photons can seemingly exit a material before entering it, challenging our conventional understanding of cause and effect. This phenomenon, dubbed "negative time," occurs when light particles interact with a cloud of ultracold atoms, resulting in a mind-bending superposition of outcomes. This discovery unveils yet another layer of quantum weirdness, pushing the boundaries of physics and forcing us to reconsider the nature of light-matter interactions at the smallest scales. Scientific American (7 minutes)

What If Everything is Conscious?

Once dismissed as mystical nonsense, panpsychism — the idea that consciousness permeates everything — is experiencing a scientific renaissance. From slime molds solving mazes to plants remembering past experiences, mounting evidence suggests that consciousness may not be limited to complex brains. This theory offers an elegant solution to the "hard problem" of how consciousness arises from matter by proposing it's a fundamental feature of the universe, scaling up from subatomic particles to human minds. While panpsychism raises ethical quandaries about how we treat the world around us, it also presents a more enchanted view of reality. As scientists delve deeper into the nature of consciousness, we may need to radically reconsider our place in a universe teeming with awareness. Vox (11 minutes)

Contentment Is Better Than Happiness

Happiness is fleeting; contentment endures. Research suggests that contentment enhances self-acceptance, life satisfaction and our ability to forge positive relationships. Unlike happiness, which often relies on external circumstances, contentment fosters a deep sense of inner peace and self-acceptance. This calm state of mind allows us to appreciate our current situation without constantly seeking more, leading to greater life satisfaction and resilience in the face of life's inevitable ups and downs. By cultivating contentment, we may find ourselves better equipped to navigate life's challenges and experience a more consistent sense of well-being. Greater Good (6 minutes)

Should We Work Together?

Hi! I’m Kyle. This newsletter is my passion project. When I’m not writing, I run a law firm that helps startups move fast without breaking things. Most founders want a trusted legal partner, but they hate surprise legal bills. At Westaway, we take care of your startup’s legal needs for a flat, monthly fee so you can control your costs and focus on scaling your business. If you’re interested, let’s jump on a call to see if you’re a good fit for the firm. Click here to schedule a one-on-one call with me.

Founder Fridays

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Weekend Wisdom

He who is not contented with what he has would not be contented with what he would like to have. - Socrates