Gm. Yesterday, CNN’s fear and greed index (which tracks investor confidence in the stock market) closed the day in “Fear” territory, up from the “Extreme Fear” range it’s been hovering in for the past few months.

As for the venture market, everyone is still in “Write a doomsday Twitter thread” mode as far as we can tell.

FRESH POWDER

Looking at three funds that recently topped up their coffers.

BIG TECH 

Apple the Star(tup) Killer

On Monday, Apple hosted its annual WWDC developer conference. For most normal people, that means some subtle iOS tweaks are on the way you’ll likely hate at first, then inevitably come to love. But for some startup founders, the day can be scarier than the grandfather clock in Stranger Things.

Given its enormous size, each one of the multitude of announcements Apple made on Monday has the chance to pose an existential threat to a company, or even an entire industry, down the line.

Here’s who might be shaking in their boots

• Klarna, Affirm, and the whole Buy Now Pay Later industry: The big announcement of the day was the release of Apple Pay Later. As the name implies, the update allows users to split up an Apple Pay purchase into equal payments over the span of six weeks. In other words, pretty much exactly what Klarna and Affirm do. Affirm shares fell 5.5% in Monday trading, but rebounded 2.6% yesterday signaling that investors aren’t overly worried about the Apple threat…yet.

• Any password sharing company: Apple may have finally killed the password. It demoed “passkeys” which allow you to replace all your passwords with biometric sign-ins like FaceID. If the much more convenient, and secure, biometric standard catches on, password sharing startups like 1pass are in for 10 characters, a number, and a symbol of hurt.

• Meta: Not exactly a startup, but Zuck is still probably quaking. The white whale in the AR/VR space is the headset Apple has in development set to launch next year. Even though Tim Cook didn’t bust it out on stage, Apple did flex its AR chops—it debuted RoomPlan, a program that can scan and generate 3D floor plans. It’s not as sexy as a fully fledged metaverse, but it's the type of functional software that the industry needs to smooth the path towards broader adoption. Meta may have changed the name of its company, but Apple is also taking strides towards a mixed reality future.

Reality check: Yes Apple is scary, but if big incumbents always beat out startups to the same ideas, then Apple wouldn’t even exist today.

CRYPTO

Insane scandal? Or super scam?

That’s been the question of the week so far in crypto land after an anonymous Twitter account posted a viral thread threatening to expose notable figures in the indsutry for crimes ranging from scams and financial fraud to much more serious allegations like sex crimes and even murder.

Meet @adyingnobody

On Monday night, the account manned by a mysterious “dying nobody” posted a long Twitter thread claiming to have information that will expose a laundry list of shocking crimes in the crypto space.

• The thread mentions a security flaw within the Telegram messaging service that @adyingnobody claims to have used to spy on private conversations dating back to 2019. A Telegram spokesperson responded to the thread saying it has “all the hallmarks of a hoax.”

Hoax or not, the thread promptly blew up, amassing over 17,000 likes and 12,000 retweets in just over 18 hours. As of now, the community is split on whether the claims are real or if it's all just an elaborate scam to get people to download malware instead of the alleged messages.

Bottom line: Either way we won’t have to speculate much longer: @adyingnobody plans to release “everything” by July 7.

QUICK HITS

Seed Round

Stat: For the first time in over a year, VC funding failed to reach $40 billion in one month, topping out at $39 billion, per a Crunchbase report. But it’s not all doom and gloom—seed funding actually increased from $2.8 billion last year to $3.1 billion in May 2022.

Story we’re watching: Elon is once again trying to back out of his Twitter deal. His lawyer sent a letter to Twitter accusing the platform of skirting Elon’s request to see more numbers around the fake accounts on the platform. While this saga has had more twists and turns than the Monaco Grand Prix, Twitter still has grounds to sue if Elon backs out. If we had to guess, the deal will more than likely get done.

Rabbit hole: On seeking meaning beyond metrics (Browser Company).

WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON

• PayPal, after months of customer requests, introduced support to let users transfer their crypto to other wallets and exchanges.

• The European Union is cutting into one of Apple’s main revenue streams (chargers) by mandating all phones sold in the EU use USB-C by fall 2024.

• Bird announced plans to lay off 23% of its staff.

• Uber and Waymo are teaming up on freight operations after months of tense legal negotiations between the two companies surrounding autonomous driving technology.

THREE LIES AND A HEADLINE

Three of these headlines are from The Onion, but one is actually real. Can you sniff out the truth?

A. “Teen spelling bee champion commits to spell for UCLA”

B. “California court rules that bees are a type of fish in order to protect them under the state's endangered species act”

C. “NSA honored for diversity in surveillance footage”

D. “Survey finds balloons still nation’s favorite floating orb”

FOUNDERS CORNER

The best resources we came across that will help you become a better founder, builder, or investor.

🔨 A collection of tools for systems thinking

🏘️ Greylock’s top five markets for startups

📹 A guide to acquiring customers with TikTok ads

NEWS FROM THE HOUSE

Last chance to build with the best

The best month of your life—other than the one when Shrek came out—is just an application away.

25 builders

1 house

$50,000 on the line

THREE HEADLINES ANSWER

B. California is actually categorizing bees (which fly last time we checked) as fish.