Weekend Briefing No. 590
Principles for Digital Tech -- The Battlefield at Home -- Everest in a Long Weekend
Welcome to the weekend.
Prime Numbers
1,003,000,000 — BBQ sauce is hot. U.S. barbecue sauce sales grew from $770 million in 2019 to $1.03 billion in 2024, with boutique brand Bachan's exemplifying this growth by scaling from $35,000 in 2019 to $1.5 million in 2020 and projecting $100 million in revenue this year while reaching 5% of households across 25,000 locations.
31 — Nepali sherpa guide Kami Rita broke his own record with his 31st Mount Everest summit on Tuesday, having climbed the peak multiple times per year since his first ascent in 1994.
2 — More than 2% of Americans are taking the blockbuster class of GLP-1 drugs for overweight or obesity, up nearly 600% over six years.
Principles for Digital Tech
Most profitable apps no longer aim to provide value—they're designed to consume your time, with only 20% of Facebook and 10% of Instagram content actually coming from friends. Despite 53% of Americans wanting to reduce phone usage and 70% of Gen Z believing less screen time would improve their mental health, digital platforms exploit our "fast thinking" impulses for sugar, conflict, and stimulation while undermining our "slow thinking" aspirations for meaningful relationships and stable futures. Eight policy principles offer a roadmap to realign technology with human values: device-level age verification, targeting harmful design features rather than entire platforms, phone-free schools, minimum safety standards, and protection from AI chatbots that manipulate children into emotional attachment. The solution isn't to abandon technology but to change market incentives so platforms profit from creating genuine value rather than harvesting attention at the expense of mental health and human connection. After Babel (12 minutes)
The Battlefield at Home
The deadliest battlefield for American veterans isn't overseas—it's in their own neighborhoods. Since the start of the War on Terror in 2001, more than 7,000 U.S. service members have died during their service, mostly in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, 140,000 veterans took their own lives between 2001 and 2022 — well over 6,000 veterans every year, or an average of more than 17 each day. The transition from military to civilian life strips away the protective armor of unit cohesion and shared purpose, leaving many veterans isolated and struggling with an identity crisis that can prove fatal. Simple civilian actions like phone calls, coffee meetings, or family cookout invitations can serve as lifelines, proving that preventing veteran suicide isn't just the government's responsibility—it's a community effort that requires all of us to show up. The Hill (4 minutes)
$42 for every $1: The ROI of Strategic Newsletters
For every $1 spent on email marketing, companies generate $42. Email is (still) one of the highest ROI channels to reach your audience. Yet, it’s never been harder to stand out in the inbox. The companies that get the highest ROI don’t just sell products and promote themselves—they build long-term, human relationships with insightful editorial newsletters. With a few simple changes, you can turn your newsletter into an unfair advantage. See how your newsletter stacks up with this Newsletter Health Check: 10 proven ways to optimize your newsletter. Future Forest (Sponsored)
Everest in a Long Weekend
What happens when you can summit Everest during a long weekend instead of dedicating months to the spiritual journey of acclimatization? Four British climbers just proved that xenon gas can compress the traditional weeks-long Everest experience into less than a week, sparking outrage from traditionalists who view this as destroying the essence of mountaineering achievement. The controversial gas triggers the body's natural high-altitude adaptation response, but experts remain divided on its safety and effectiveness, with some calling it performance enhancement that violates climbing ethics. This breakthrough forces a fundamental question about whether we should optimize away the struggle and sacrifice that traditionally defined one of humanity's greatest physical accomplishments, or embrace technology that makes extreme adventures accessible to time-pressed professionals. New York Times (6 minutes)
Worried About the Boys
What if our fight for gender equality accidentally created a generation of disconnected young men who are now being weaponized against the very progress we fought to achieve? The founder of Girls Who Code reveals a painful truth: while we taught girls to be brave, we forgot to teach boys to be soft, leaving them vulnerable to manipulation by voices that promise simple answers to complex insecurities. As boys become less likely to attend college, more likely to die by suicide, and increasingly drawn to toxic masculinity influencers, we're discovering that disconnection itself may be the strategy—keeping us divided so we can't build together. The solution isn't better messaging or counter-programming the "manosphere," but genuine connection starting with dinner table conversations that ask boys how they're feeling and show them that vulnerability, empathy, and admitting "I don't know" are actually signs of strength. Progress isn't zero-sum, but we'll only prove that by creating space for both girls and boys to thrive in a future where real power listens rather than dominates. TIME (7 minutes)
Screwtape’s Economy
What if our economic anxiety isn't caused by policy failures, but by the systematic removal of all meaningful friction from modern life? Drawing parallels between C.S. Lewis's demonic correspondence and today's financial landscape, we discover that rejection has become the default economic condition, convenience has replaced resilience, and algorithmic optimization has eliminated the surprise that makes culture worth consuming. The same spiritual erosion that Screwtape advocated—choosing ease over effort, deferring difficulty, and losing the capacity for presence—now defines everything from job applications to national debt management. Rather than solving our problems through more optimization, we might need to deliberately reintroduce friction, embrace the discomfort of genuine choice, and recognize that meaningful economic life requires the very struggles we've been trying to engineer away. Kyla’s Newsletter (8 minutes)
Trade Crime
When you raise tariffs to levels not seen in a century, you don't just increase taxes—you supercharge an entire criminal ecosystem designed to circumvent them. Trump's aggressive tariff policies have triggered a flood of fraudulent schemes, from Chinese companies openly advertising "Beat U.S. Tariffs" services to complex transshipment operations that route goods through third countries to disguise their origin. U.S. companies report being bombarded with offers to dodge duties through fake documentation, undervalued shipments, and shell company arrangements that promise to make tariffs "disappear" for a fee. The government's enforcement efforts have become "a game of Whac-a-Mole," with honest businesses paying billions in legitimate tariffs while competitors gain unfair advantages through customs fraud that costs the treasury billions annually. Rather than protecting American industry, sky-high tariffs are creating perverse incentives that reward the most dishonest players while punishing companies that follow the rules. New York Times (9 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.
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Weekend Wisdom
You don't have to be a fantastic hero to do certain things—to compete. You can be just an ordinary chap, sufficiently motivated to reach challenging goals. - Sir Edmund Hillary