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Hello Reader,

“We all fall down.”

For the fifth session in a row, domestic indices have ended the day in red—albeit slightly—on Tuesday as the Sensex lost 37.7 points to 57,107 while Nifty fell ~9 points to 17,007. On the other hand, the rupee ended marginally up but remained at record low levels.

Speaking of money, Gautam Adani has once again lost the second-richest tag to Jeff Bezos. Oh, and Mukesh Ambani has fallen out of the top 10 list entirely, landing at 11.

ICYMI: Star Wars’ Darth Vader will now be voiced by A.I. as 91-year-old James Earl Jones steps back from the iconic role after over four decades. 

Age of the machines indeed…

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• Startup employees are ditching the ‘hustle’
• The ‘sweet’ Mullick legacy of 130+ years
• Inside Capital 2B’s deep tech focus

Here’s your trivia for today: Which city is home to the most billionaires in the world?

Work culture

Startup employees are ditching the ‘hustle’

The hustle culture in the Indian startup ecosystem has become more than just a frustration. This was reflected by widespread outrage on calls for working 18 hours a day or giving interviews at unconventional hours.

Many employees working in startups are now pushing back—raising their voices in company town halls, demanding overtime and paid leaves, and even sharing their concerns on social media.

The dark side:

• China’s tech industry is struggling with the 996 work culture rule while Japan has a morbid problem of ‘death by overwork’.
• In India, poor mental health among employees costs employers around $14 billion, according to a Deloitte report.
• Bengaluru-based psychologist Ishita Dutta says the number of her clients experiencing burnout has doubled.

Small business

The ‘sweet’ Mullick legacy of 130+ years

For 137 years, Balaram Mullick and Radharaman Mullick (BMRM) has been making the streets of Kolkata sweeter with its mouth-watering sweets and delicacies.

“We are one of the favourite brands of our people but staying here is an opportunity with a lot of responsibility. Every customer comes with an expectation. It feels very nice, but to be able to fulfil it is always a pressure,” says co-owner Sudip Mullick.

A sweet legacy:

• For more than 100 years, the company operated out of a single shop in Bhowanipore before expanding in 2003. It now has 15 shops across Kolkata.
• The brand boasts of 150 varieties of sweets and snacks. Each store witnesses a billing of 500-1000 sweets and snacks every day. 
• BMRM introduced the concept of baked mithais, including baked rosogollas and sandesh.

Investment

Inside Capital 2B’s deep tech focus

Vibhore Sharma and Amit Behl co-founded Capital 2B as a $75 million venture capital fund with a specific focus to invest in deep tech startups in India—numbering around 3,000, according to NASSCOM.

“There are a lot of investments that are happening in the deep tech space in the last two to three years as many see the possibility of something big emerging here,” Vibhore says.

Investment thesis:

• Capital 2B’s ticket size will be between $200,000 to $3 million, intervening at the pre-seed, seed, and Series A stages.
• The VC aims to invest in about 20-25 startups working in emerging technologies, enterprise and consumer apps, intelligent software and hardware, etc.
• It has so far invested in EV startup Better and MetaMorphoSys, which is operating in the digital insurance space. 

News & updates

• Powered up: The US Transportation Department (USDOT) said it has approved the electric vehicle charging station plans for all 50 states, Washington and Puerto Rico covering about 75,000 miles of highways.
• The fine print: More marketers are taking notice of California’s data privacy laws after the state said last month that cosmetics retailer Sephora had agreed to pay $1.2 million in penalties for alleged violations related to its targeted advertising practices.
• Merge mayhem: An upgrade to the blockchain backing the world’s second-biggest cryptocurrency could trigger widespread tax confusion in the UK, potentially setting back the country’s efforts to establish itself as a crypto hub. 
• Space collision: NASA has completed a key step of its “Double Asteroid Redirection Test” (DART), smashing a satellite roughly the size of a vending machine into a small moon that’s about half a mile in diameter. 

What you should watch out for

• RBI will start three-day deliberations amid expectations of another rate hike of 50 basis points to check high inflation.
• Toyota to unveil India’s first flex-fuel (mixture of petrol and ethanol or methanol) vehicle.
• Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to hold a meeting of his Council of Ministers with a focus on rising inflation.
• Amazon hosting an invite-only hardware event at 9:30 pm.

Which city is home to the most billionaires in the world?

Answer: New York City, with 107 billionaires. It is followed by Beijing at 83, and Hong Kong at 68.

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