Good morning. One of the things they don’t tell you about professional life is that when you excel at your job, you get promoted and become a manager of people…which is an entirely different job than the one you were doing before. And it turns out being a good boss requires more than just leaning on someone’s desk and asking, “How was your weekend, champ?”

HEALTH

Surgeon General issues SOS on kids and social media

The kids are not all right, and the Surgeon General believes social media is to blame.

Dr. Vivek H. Murthy issued a powerful public advisory yesterday warning of the considerable risks that social media poses to young people’s mental health. “Nearly every teenager in America uses social media, and yet we do not have enough evidence to conclude that it is sufficiently safe for them,” Murthy wrote. He argued that kids have “become unknowing participants in a decades-long experiment.”

The surgeon general’s report focuses on the impacts of social media on teens and kids—both positive and negative—and the attendant health risks. The report outlines two types of dangers associated with social networks: content-related problems, such as negative self-image or bullying, and use-related problems, such as poor sleep and addiction.

What we know about social media and kids’ mental health

By all accounts, America’s youth are currently experiencing a mental health crisis.

• The number of teens and young adults with clinical depression doubled between 2011 and 2021, according to San Diego State University psychology professor Jean Twenge.

• In 2021, the CDC found that nearly 25% of teenage girls had made a suicide plan.

Many experts have pointed to social media as a potential cause since the deterioration of kids’ mental health has coincided with the rise of social media platforms over the last decade.

Still, the effect of likes, retweets, and TikTok comments on kids’ brains remains more or less a mystery. We know that social media use affects adolescents and that teens show alarming rates of anxiety and depression. But studies that have attempted to determine whether social media is a direct cause of worsening mental health have been inconclusive. Plus, not all kids are impacted by social media similarly: Some—adolescent girls, for instance—appear to be more at risk than others.

TECH

Don’t sleep on Claude

“No AI revolution without a constitution!” That’s the rallying cry of generative AI startup Anthropic, which makes constitutionally governed AI tech like Claude, a chatbot rival of ChatGPT.

Anthropic announced yesterday that it raised $450 million in a mammoth round led by Google and Salesforce. This infusion puts Anthropic behind only ChatGPT-creator OpenAI among AI startups in total funding, per Crunchbase.

What’s with the whole constitution thing?

It’s not a bit. Anthropic was founded in 2021 as a public benefit corporation by former OpenAI employees who sought to prioritize AI safety. With that in mind, they designed their AI chatbot, Claude, to adhere to values expressed in a constitution. It doesn’t start with “We the algorithms…” but instead gets inspiration from documents like the UN Universal Charter of Human Rights and Apple’s Terms of Service.

According to the constitution, Claude must avoid stereotyping groups of people, spreading misinformation, and offending non-Western audiences, among other toxic chatbot behaviors.

Looking ahead...Claude is already integrated into Slack, and it’ll soon be chatting up Zoom users. Anthropic says it plans to add new products, make its algorithms more powerful, and carry on with AI safety research.

TRANSPORTATION

LA gets shade—just not the kind it wanted

Sometimes the most hated person on social media can be a metal structure just trying its best.

In this case, the structure is La Sombrita, the Los Angeles Transportation Department’s latest attempt to shield riders from the bright SoCal sun and provide light for night commuters. But instead of welcoming La Sombrita onto their sidewalks, LA residents asked “For real?” when they saw the structure introduced last week.

One look at La Sombrita and you can understand the skepticism. These sorta-shelters, which are attached to a bus-stop pole and resemble an oversized fly swatter, can provide shade for maybe two people—if they are in a passionate embrace.

La Sombrita is a Band-Aid on a third-degree sunburn, but its creators say the structure is the best they could do amid cumbersome government regulations. Los Angeles has a 16-step process that involves getting approvals from at least eight separate city departments to install a traditional bus shelter. Meanwhile, La Sombrita’s minimal footprint means it can skirt all that red tape.

Big picture: Its designers stress this is just a pilot program and isn’t meant to meet all of the city’s bus-stop shade needs. But La Sombrita’s many critics still say, “Do better.”

SEOUL FOOD

The $40m bet that made South Korea a food and cultural power

If you’ve eaten Korean food, you know it’s delicious.

Whether you’ve flipped sizzling beef over a Korean barbecue, crunched down on a tangy piece of kimchi, or basked in the warm steam wafting off a bibimbap bowl, the experience is captivating.

What you might not know, though, is that your meal likely came with a heaping side of government funds.

In 2009, the South Korean government launched the $40m Korean Cuisine to the World campaign with the goal of improving South Korea’s global reputation through its food.

In the years to come, the government would spend millions of dollars opening Korean restaurants abroad, developing and standardizing recipes, and working to make South Korea a culinary destination for international tourists.

SNIPPETS

TodAI in AI: Google-backed generative AI startup Anthropic raised $450m, bringing total funding to ~$1.45B. Anthropic is behind only OpenAI in the AI capital-raising race — but by a mile: OpenAI has raised $11.3B+ to date.

Buy high, sell low: Months after UK antitrust authorities ordered Meta to sell Giphy, which was acquired for ~$315m in 2020 and has 1.7B daily users, Shutterstock is buying the company for $53m.

Wait, it’s not good for us?! US Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy issued a wide-ranging advisory on the risks of social media use to youth mental health. If you’re interested in reading the dense 19-page report, here you go.

What is even real anymore? Adobe’s Generative Fill AI feature, coming to Photoshop later this year, lets you extend images and insert objects using text. Should come in handy for, well, basically anyone.

Flipboard is integrating Bluesky, allowing users to browse their feeds in the app. Flipboard has also integrated Mastodon, and is set to add decentralized Instagram alternative Pixelfed, too.

Stay agile: Your leadership style can have a huge impact on your team and business. Looking to be flexible and adaptable? Try agile leadership.

AROUND THE WEB

On this day: In 1935, MLB held its first night game, made possible by new lights installed at Cincinnati’s Crosley Field. The Cincinnati Reds saw paid attendance bump 117% that season.

Meta: has begun its final round of layoffs in the effort it announced in March to shed 10,000 employees. This portion of Zuck’s “year of efficiency” appears to have targeted people in marketing, recruiting, engineering, and corporate communications roles.
 That’s cool: The National Postal Museum’s new online exhibit, “Stamps Across the Pacific: A Visual History of Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Migrations,” includes every related USPS stamp issued to date.

That’s interesting: Red velvet cake has changed a lot over time. For one, it hasn’t always been red.

🐕Aww: And now, “I’m Batman.”