If you say logistics three times fast we appear, right alongside a billion dollars. Bringg is the latest, raising $100 million and earning a billion dollar valuation in the process. The Chicago office seems tiny, with lots of folks international, but the company is hiring. And we don’t seem likely to stop having things delivered any time soon.
That’s why project44 is also raising $202 million at a valuation of $1.2 billion. Its software tracks goods in transit, so you always know exactly where your new toilet brush is.
We have long had suspicions about IDEO, so we cannot thank George Aye enough for detailing exactly how toxic that culture is — and encouraging other people to come forward with their own stories of racism, sexism and trauma. We started this newsletter to make whisper networks a little louder, and that’s exactly what George is doing here: making sure everyone knows exactly what they’re getting into at IDEO, and holding IDEO accountable for changing it. We’ve worked with George and his studio, Greater Good, and can personally say he is creating exactly the opposite kind of space. They’re hiring a summer fellow, if that sounds appealing.
JPMorgan Chase, on the other hand, is still working hard to make you forget it’s JPMorgan Chase — tripling its commitment to invest in Chicago’s South and West sides to $150 million. It sounds very generous, until you realize these are still loans, and Chase still stands to turn a profit, if a smaller one.
Insurance startup Kin raised $69 million (nice), some of which came from a professional golfer (lol). You may remember Kin from a month ago, when we wrote about how it was planning to go public via a Special Purpose Acquisition Company, or SPAC. At the time, we thought it was the best proof yet that capitalism is a ridiculous myth built on anti-logic. But honestly? Raising a novelty amount of money from a sports dude may win this economic end-times game of mad libs. Tons of respect, great work.
Jobs, Glorious Jobs
Personal Executive Assistant for a Philanthropist and CEO
You know that person who can kind of just … figure it out, no matter what it is? This is a job for that person. It’s part-time, working for a well-loved person working to support a lot of great causes. No doubt this will be a job with a lot of grunt work and wrangling, but at the end of the day you’d be supporting all those great causes too.
Graphic Designer at Lincoln Hall & Schubas
Is this not the best ad for a graphic designer you have ever seen?
You know how when you really, really want to get out of something you’ll do just a terrible job? This, apparently, is the Lincoln Hall/Schubas approach. And it’s working. Admitting you are hiring someone because you do not know how to do the job yourself, this is the way to our hearts right here.
Inspiration of the week
“I should mention that I have reached a permanent state of horror such that my life now is about little more than acting as normal as possible so as to not make anyone else’s life worse. ...
Finding out Ben and Jen were getting back together was the first truly shocking piece of news I’ve heard in years that wasn’t also horrible. I am convinced that experiencing surprise this intense unattended by panic and dread literally increased my serotonin production.”
—Sarah Miller, in her delightful new newsletter we subscribed to entirely on the strength of her essay about bridge dogs (don’t click unless you’re somewhere you can cry). While we can’t say we have given the same amount of brainspace to Bennifer, is this not the exact sensation we experienced when John Mulaney started dating Olivia Munn? It’s a surprisingly emotional reaction to a piece of news that, upon further reflection, does not have any consequences at all, just novelty.
If this can happen, then, as Miller says, “maybe I should stop being so sure I know what’s going to happen.”
May this letter greet you as you try a pawpaw for the first time or see your boss’s face stuck at an unflattering angle in Zoom — some small pleasure you could not have anticipated.
Housekeeping note: We’ll be off next time to celebrate the fourth of July. See you in a month, when who knows what will happen!
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