Stanford dorm room to billion-dollar exit in 32 months.
Not in tech. In CPG.
Grüns was founded in August 2023. Unilever just acquired it.
Poppi took 9 years. Liquid I.V. took 8. Dr. Squatch took 12.
The timeline:
Month 1: First sales. Pre-seed from Stanford classmates.
Month 6: $6M seed. Vanterra, SugarCap, Selva.
Month 14: Profitable.
Month 21: $100M run rate, online only. $35M Series B at $500M valuation.
Month 24: $300M run rate. 6,300 retail doors. All Targets. All Walmarts. Every Sam's Club.
Month 32: Acquired by Unilever.
The product: 8 gummy bears. 60 ingredients. $80/month. 80% of customers use it daily.
Chad Janis was a VC before this. Board observer at Chubbies, Brooklinen, Dr. Squatch. He watched the Dr. Squatch exit to Unilever from the inside.
He didn't just build a brand. He built the brand Unilever was going to acquire.
Unilever already owns Liquid I.V., Nutrafol, SmartyPants.
They're not buying a gummy supplement. They're buying 80% daily compliance and a DTC subscription engine legacy brands can't replicate.
32 months. The fastest launch-to-billion in CPG history.
What's going on these days in Thailand that we're not hearing about? World events are not black & white. There's more going on here than what meets the eye.
Below is a synopsis of important events happening in Thailand and the region that nobody is talking about.
The US is quietly pivoting a significant slice of its Southeast Asia engagement, especially with long-time treaty ally Thailand, around countering transnational organized crime, with a heavy emphasis on the explosion of pig-butchering/crypto-investment scam centers operating out of Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos and border areas.
This is not replacing traditional military/diplomatic ties; it is layering on top of them and using law enforcement and intelligence tools as a core predicate for aid, training, sanctions and even some military assistance.
While the Middle East events dominate headlines, the Thailand/SE Asia story is playing out in joint task-force war rooms, multibillion dollar crypto forfeitures, and targeted aid packages that get almost no media coverage.
Here’s what’s actually happening on the ground right now (as of early April 2026) based on public U.S. government, Thai, and regional reporting:
1. Military assistance? The U.S. recently delivered 17 armored Stryker vehicles to the Royal Thai Army. . Thai officials framed the transfer as part of a broader $100 million U.S. military-support package that also includes border-security enhancements and help modernizing Thai armored units. This is classic alliance maintenance, but it is increasingly justified in Thai and U.S. statements as helping Thailand secure its borders against the same criminal networks that run scam compounds just across the line in Myanmar and Cambodia.
2. FBI, Royal Thai Police integration in Bangkok is deep and operational The FBI’s Legal Attaché office (Legat Bangkok) has embedded personnel inside Thai led War Room task forces and the Royal Thai Police Anti-Cyber Scam Center (ACSC). They are running real-time information-sharing ops with the Thai police and other partners. Recent Joint Disruption Weeks have led to:
Mass account takedowns (150,000+ scam-related accounts disabled in one March 2026 operation).
Dozens of arrests inside Thailand.
Victim rescues and domain seizures targeting compounds in Myanmar (e.g., the Tai Chang network).
This is not advisory, U.S. agents are co-located and co-investigating with Thai counterparts on a daily basis.
3. The $15 billion Prince Group crypto seizure was the biggest law-enforcement headline almost nobody in the West noticed
In October 2025 the DOJ and FBI, under Director Kash Patel, announced the "largest asset forfeiture in U.S. history": roughly 127,000 Bitcoin, valued at ~$15 billion, tied to Cambodian tycoon Chen Zhi and his Prince Group conglomerate. Chen was indicted for running forced labor scam compounds that specialized in crypto pig-butchering fraud targeting Americans. Thailand itself later seized hundreds of millions in linked assets and issued arrest warrants. This is an ongoing enforcement wave, not a one-off.
The U.S. government explicitly links these networks to Chinese organized-crime syndicates and, in some FBI statements, to implicit Chinese Communist Party tolerance or facilitation. The scam centers are treated as a hybrid national-security threat: they generate billions in illicit revenue, traffic thousands of people, and fleece U.S. citizens. Estimated U.S. losses from SE Asia scams topped $10 billion in 2024 alone.
4. A recent US $45 million aid package is explicitly law-enforcement-heavy
In January 2026 the U.S. announced "$45 million" in new assistance split between Thailand and Cambodia to lock in the Trump-brokered Kuala Lumpur Peace Accords which ended 2025 border fighting between the two countries. Of that, $20 million is earmarked for joint Thai, Cambodian initiatives against transnational crime, online scams, and drug trafficking. The rest covers border stabilization, de-mining, and community recovery. Thai officials have highlighted the anti-scam component as a major win.
Why this feels like a shift, and why it’s flying under the radar:
Law-enforcement predicates are now a primary justification for engagement. Traditional alliance language such as “shared democratic values,” and “Indo-Pacific strategy” are still there, but the concrete deliverables: aid, vehicles, training, sanctions relief, are increasingly tied to measurable results on scams, trafficking, and cybercrime. This is pragmatic: scams directly hurt American voters and are a growth industry that destabilizes the region.
Thailand is the indispensable US partner. As a U.S. treaty ally with a functioning justice system and a long border with the scam hubs, Thailand has become the forward operating base for FBI and interagency efforts. The Thai government has declared anti-scam work a “national agenda” and is happy to host the Americans.
Media vacuum.
The Middle East statements about the war in Iran, Gaza, NATO drama, etc., get media attention. Meanwhile, a $15 billion crypto bust, embedded FBI, Thai police task forces, and armored-vehicle deliveries tied to counter-crime ops barely register outside niche security outlets.
In short, what we're seeing is the Trump administration’s foreign policy in practice in one theater: use every lever (military assistance, sanctions, FBI presence, targeted aid, diplomacy) to protect U.S. citizens from a massive, borderless criminal enterprise while reinforcing a key Southeast Asian ally. It’s less flashy than aircraft carriers in the Strait of Hormuz, but it’s producing tangible results such as arrests, seizures, rescued victims, and hardened borders, right now. The pundits may be focused on the Middle East, but the operational story in Thailand and the scam-center belt is where a big, quiet piece of U.S. foreign policy is actually being executed.
Will Ferrell’s blooper outtake from “Eastbound & Down” is up there with hardest acting challenges ever.
Danny McBride and Craig Robinson use every bit of willpower to not laugh as Ferrell tries to break them.
Robinson told Vulture about the experience:
➡️ “I remember standing there, trying to keep it together. I’m busting a brain vessel trying to stare in the face and eyes of Danny McBride, while Will Ferrell is deliberately trying to murder us, trying to ruin the take.
You know, talking about [doing Ferrell’s voice], ‘My plums have a bluish hue. Sun dancing off them just right. And my son Gabriel!’…
You got to understand this was all new, fresh stuff — like, what the frick?! And he’s laughing and checking in on us. Oh man, it was a beautiful day of laughter.
But I felt horrible. I was trying, man. I was trying so hard. Tears came down my eyes.” ⬅️
Over 50x views, this clip has a 100% hit rate of making me lose it too lol
AI created an alternate timeline where historical figures were not only aware of smartphones and Twitter but they were obsessed with them.
Here are 11 incredible Viral Selfies of our History that you won't believe existed:
1. Freddie Mercury
Today is my 32nd birthday.
Over the last month, I asked several 90-year-olds what advice they would give to their 32-year-old selves.
Here's the life advice everyone needs to hear:
1/ A decade ago, one of my best friends took over his family's electrical business and worked 6 days a week to grow the company. He recently achieved a generational wealth level exit.
He told me a story once that helped me understand how his family achieved such success.
Things change quickly here.
Many months of unpredictable volatility, black swans, & new headlines often blind us to just how far we’ve come.
The easiest way of explaining what I mean by this is by showing you… (1/x)
🚨GIVEAWAY TIME
We are giving away this Atlético Mineiro jersey to one lucky follower🇧🇷⚽️
⬇️To enter:
🔁Retweet this tweet
🤝Follow us
Winner picked Monday
Real wealth is created during bear markets.
But no one shares practical advice other than "buy the dip".
Here's your playbook to make the most out of a bear market:
(+ a few sample portfolios)
🚨 We are giving away this Atlético Mineiro special edition shirt to one lucky follower! 🇧🇷
To enter 👇
🔄 Retweet this tweet
🤝 Follow us
Winner will be announced Sunday night. Good luck everyone! 🤞
My 2 cents on Putin’s decision today:
This is a strategic defeat for Putin and a full-scale war is even less likely after today then before.
Let me explain in this thread. The primary goal of Putin has been to subjugate Ukraine and especially its foreign and defense policy 1/
Tim Cook is best known for being the HEAD of the Most Iconic Company in the World - Apple
But very few know about how he got there.
This is the story of Tim Cook and HOW he managed to became the CEO OF APPLE.
🧵👇
Joe Burrow was drafted to a team that went 2-14 before he arrived — the worst record in the NFL.
He tore his ACL during his rookie year & the Bengals only won 4 games.
Now just a year later, Burrow & the Bengals are going to the Super Bowl.
INSANE 🤯