Description
We’re overloaded with overdoses in America. COVID-19 only accelerated these deaths of despair, and the Sackler family is only recently being held accountable for the deceptive and manipulative practices of Purdue Pharma, one of the most exploitative enterprises of the last century.
We’re interested in ventures building creative solutions to addiction and its aftermath. First, in a world of predictive technology, we have the ability to nudge people to identify when they are on the path toward poor decision making. Self-reporting and quantification are increasingly mainstream, but this data has yet to be fully leveraged for insights that can help the user resist harmful behaviors.
And few individuals escape addiction on their own. The essential ingredient of accountable human community can be facilitated through various methods, including technology, housing, and shared work settings.
In today’s commercially-driven world people are more likely to be seen and referred to as 'consumers' than anything else. Instead of being met with resistance, this shift has often meant that individuals have formed their identity through a composite of brands, and product purchasing can be guided more by the desire to make a statement about one’s identity and values than strict utility. As a result, the lines between social movement, capitalism, and community are increasingly blurry (see: Nike, Whole Foods, and Patagonia).
Given this reality (which is with us for both better and worse), we’d like to support entrepreneurs with a vision for building brands with a counter-culturally virtuous and optimistic view of the world, spreading hope and beauty, eliminating stigma, and most fundamentally, redirecting our identity away from materialistic consumption and toward lasting contentment.
