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If you have an aging furnace, you might have considered replacing it with a heat pumpthe ultra-efficient technology helps shrink utility bills and can have as much climate benefit as switching from a gas car to an EV. But heat pumps are also typically expensive: whole-home systems can sometimes cost $25,000 to $30,000. Jetson, a startup based in Vancouver, says that it can cut those costs in half to $15,000, or roughly the cost of premium gas furnace. In some areas, after adding in local incentives, the cost can be as low as $5,000. With other heat pumps, youve got this huge green premium out there, says Stephen Lake, Jetson’s founder and CEO. Thats one of the core reasons we started Jetson: to try and make this something that would become an easy yes for the average homeowner. The company launched its own heat pump, the Jetson Air, in September 2025. [Photo: Kevin Arnold/Jetson] Lake, who previously started a smart glasses startup that was acquired by Google, decided to work on heat pumps after looking at the biggest opportunities for decarbonization. “If you just look at the numbers across the U.S., about 15% of end energy use goes to residential heating and cooling,” he says. “It’s one of the biggest single buckets of carbon emissions out there. In many cases, your home is emitting at least as much, if not more, CO2 than the car in the driveway.” The technology isn’t newheat pumps have been in use for decades. (Improvements that made the tech work well in very cold temperatures are newer, rolling out over the last 15 years.) But most homes still rely on fossil-fueled heating, and the upfront cost is the main barrier. To bring down cost, the company started by eliminating markups as much as possible. Most heat pumps are made by a manufacturer, relabeled by a brand, sold to a distributor, and then sold through a contractor to a homeowner, with markups at each point. Jetson works with a manufacturer to make its own heat pumps. [Photo: Jetson] Then the team does its own installation. “We really optimized the install process to be a very efficient process, cutting out any wasted labor,” Lake says. “So we’re not like a typical contractor doing something different every day. We’re installing cold climate central heat pumps, basically the same system, every single day over and over.” The company uses software to virtually plan each project, rather than having to send out a crew to take measurements in person. Then, the startup sends out HVAC technicians, an electrician, and all of the parts needed for the whole installation to happen in a single day. The system is designed not only to reduce costs but also to minimize friction for homeowners. Typically, getting a heat pump is a multistep construction projecta homeowner would have to find HVAC contractors, schedule time for them to come give quotes, and spend time choosing between appliances. “You’re trying to navigate this complex web of rebates and incentives and then a very technical sales process around which model you want,” Lake says. Often, homeowners also need to separately hire an electrician. Jetson’s site can give a quote, and information about available rebates, within a few minutes. The company’s heat pump uses software to continually update itself and to improve performance. To help consumers save more on bills, for example, it can time itself to run when electricity prices are lowest. Right now, the startup only works in a few locations: British Columbia, Colorado, and Massachusetts, with New York launching shortly. Those locations all have the right conditions, Lake says, including consumer awareness of heat pumps, relatively high utility bills for oil or gas heat, and good incentives. In Massachusetts, for example, consumers can save thousands on a new heat pump through rebates. Until the end of 2025, Americans can also use the federal tax credit of up to $2,000. But even without that incentive, the product can make financial sense. Lake says that demand has been strong; after launching the startup last October, it’s on track to install around 1,000 systems by the end of the year.
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E-Commerce
You are what you eat, as the saying goes. But does the same apply to what you drink? Pinterests Summer Trend report flagged skincare drinks as a rising category, with searches up 176% on the app. Since then, the trend has spread across platforms, with TikTok creators touting skin-boosting drink recipes they claim clear complexion, racking up thousands of views. Maybe you should drink your skincare instead of using all these products to fix your skin, TikTok creator @xarabeq suggested in a video posted back in June. Her retinol skincare recipe includes carrots, lemon, orange, ginger, and turmeric to make a week’s worth of wellness shots. @xarabeq Drinking my skincare I want to make these retinol skincare wellness shots weekly so let me know any tips to make this process better cause CHIILLEEE it was a mess Wellness shot ingredients: 2 lemons 1 orange 2 ginger 1/2 bag of carrots 5 turmerics #drinkyourskincare #retinolskincare #clearskin #skintok #wellnessshots #healthydrink original sound – xarabeq A viral recipe by @nelakugc uses cucumber, celery, lemon, ginger, apple, and greens to concoct a glowy skin juice. Another user recommends a daily shot of olive oil mixed with lemon juice for skincare benefits. @nelakugc drink your skincare girlies #greenjuice #glowyskinjuice #glowyskin #skincare #healthyrecipes #girlytok #f DAISIES – Justin Bieber Worldwide Google searches for drinks for skin and drink for glowing skin have doubled in the past month, according to Vitabiotics, the U.K.s top vitamin company. While its true that diet affects the health of your skinthe bodys largest organare these skincare drinks actually effective? Carrots appear frequently in recipes because of their vitamin A content. Nutritionist Lucia Stansbie explains the difference between retinol in skincare and vitamin A from carrots. This drink is said to be rich in vitamin A, but plant-based vitamin A comes in the form of beta-carotene, the pigment that gives many orange fruits and vegetables their color, she says. While vitamin A does help the maintenance of normal skin, our bodies only convert beta-carotene into active vitamin A in small amounts. Instead of a daily shot, she suggests simply eating a carrot or adding one to your morning smoothie to maintain vitamin A levels. Turmeric is another common ingredient in skin elixirs touted on social media. Turmeric is also an important nutrient, but it’s better absorbed with a source of fat, Stansbie says. Instead of using it in a juice, I would again use it in a smoothie where I would add an avocado or nut butter to have some healthy fats to maximize its absorption. Celery juice is popular for its hydrating properties, but instead of juicing it, Stansbie suggests blending it and adding a source of vitamin C, one of the most powerful nutrients which contributes to normal collagen formation for the normal function of skin, along with spinach and berries. I would pair this with a protein-rich breakfast that provides vitamin B, such as vitamin B2 and biotin, which both contribute to the maintenance of normal skin.
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E-Commerce
Colin Fisher is an organizational scientist and associate professor of organizations and innovation at University College Londons School of Management. He has written about group dynamics for both popular science and management audiences, with his work having been profiled in Forbes, The Times, NPR, and the BBC. Whats the big idea? Why do some groups just click, while others fall apart? The Collective Edge unlocks the secrets to building a powerful group or contributing to its success as a member. With the right internal dynamics and structural foundation, a group can be poised and ready to collaborate effectively and become more than the sum of its parts. Below, Colin shares five key insights from his new book, The Collective Edge: Unlocking the Secret Power of Groups. Listen to the audio versionread by Colin himselfbelow, or in the Next Big Idea App. 1. The lone genius is a mythtry a collective perspective. We love stories of lone geniuses. Narratives of individuals shaping the world hold a special appeal, whether they are scientists, CEOs, performers, or prime ministers. But lone geniuses are more myth than reality. The truth is that groups make the world go round. For instance, who invented the lightbulb? If you said Thomas Edison, youd be wrong. Incandescent bulbs were invented before Edison was born. Edison built on the work of many others, and he didnt work alone. His breakthrough was a team effort with a group he called the Muckers, whose names are mostly lost to history. Today, teams dominate the landscape in terms of breakthrough ideas. One study of millions of patents and research papers found that teams were over six times more likely than individuals to produce breakthrough discoveries. So why do we keep telling the wrong story? Our brains are biased. Psychologists call it fundamental attribution error: We over-explain success with personal traits and ignore the context that made it possible. We also inflate our own contributions. In one study, group members estimated their share of the teams output; the totals reached 235%. This myth makes us worse at building teams: idolizing individual brilliance, hiring stars, purging bad apples, and hoping for lightning to strike. If we view the world from a collective perspective, we can ask better questions: What group conditions made this success possibleand how can we recreate them? Next time you admire a breakthrough, look past the most obvious hero and ask: Who else was involved, and what made their collaboration work? 2. Synergy is real, but elusive. Synergy sounds like a buzzword, but its very real. Ive felt it as a jazz musician, where groups Ive been a part of spontaneously bring ideas out of one another that none of us could have conceived alone. Research shows that synergy is possible. Great musical ensembles, sports teams, and businesses bring together diverse knowledge, skills, and perspectives to become more than the sum of their parts. But synergy is rare. Most groups underperform because of predictable process lossescoordination breakdowns and low effort. One classic study showed that members of a two-person group contribute only about 70% of what they would working alone. It gets worse as groups growa group of six yields only about 40% of its members output. Still, when synergy happens, its the pinnacle of group and human performance. Miles Daviss album Kind of Blue is my favorite example. Each musician had a distinct voiceColtranes sheets of sound, Evanss lush harmonies, Daviss restraint. Together, they made each other better. Each musicians idiosyncratic approach accentuated the beauty of the others, making the whole more than the sum of the individuals. A group of six yields only about 40% of its members output. Anthropologist Margaret Mead was right: Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, its the only thing that ever has. But it isnt easy because our group tendencies sometimes bring out the worst in us. 3. Groups can bring out the worst in us. Groups are often in the news for the wrong reasons: conformity, polarization, prejudice, conflict, and general mass stupidity. Politicians prey on the dark side of our primitive tendencies to praise us and blame them. Social media can strengthen intergroup hate while isolating us from our local communities. Our tendency to form groups underlies political conflict, war, and atrocities. Our Paleolithic brains have some dangerous tendencies. One of the most pernicious is conformity. Conformity pressures are powerful and automatic. If youre in a group watching a street performer, you clap because everyone else claps, even when youre privately unimpressed. In meetings, that same instinct silences dissenting voices. Conformity may sound bad, but it has a purpose. Conformity keeps groups together and allows them to coordinate smoothlywe sometimes need to go along to get along. But on the dark side of conformity, sometimes were pushed to conform to the will of the collective. Conformity pressures are at the root of many catastrophic decisions, cult-like thinking, and extremism. Online echo chambers and increasing political polarization are making these forces stronger than ever. But the dark side isnt inevitable if we structure our groups carefully. 4. Use group structure to stack the deck toward synergy. Great groups dont emerge purely by chance. Theyre purposely designed to maximize their chances of achieving synergy. A groups composition, goals, tasks, and norms collectively make up its structure. Structure is the most powerful way to build effective, happier groups. The best-designed groups are small teams working interdependently toward clear goals, with motivating tasks and norms that foster psychological safety and autonomy. Too often, however, leaders are careless about group structure. They form teams based on politics and availability, rather than selecting the optimal mix of knowledge and skills. They charge teams with vague goals yet micromanage the process. They offer the team boring, demotivating tasks. When problems arise, many try to directly alter the group processholding meetings to diffuse conflict or giving rousing speeches to motivate disengaged members. One study found that when faced with a struggling group, 84% tried to intervene in the process, while only 5% used the most powerful lever available: changing the groups structure. The best-designed groups are small teams working interdependently toward clear goals, with motivating tasks and norms that foster psychological safety and autonomy. Its like they say in gambling: The house always wins. In a casino, you can win with a good strategy for a little while. But, in the long run, the odds embedded in the game will win out. Its the same in teams. Structure is simply more powerful than coaching. It should be thefirst place you turn when designing a group for synergy. 5. You can shape the groups in your lifeeven without a title. In the best groups, leadership isnt just for whoever has the formal title of leader; its a team sport. Every group member can shape group dynamics. When you lack formal authority, you have three main ways to influence your group: asking questions, modeling norms, and attributing leadership to others. One of the most powerful tools is asking questions. Asking questions about the goals, norms, and processes a group is using can spark important conversations. What are we trying to accomplish here? Why do we do things the way we do them? How can we improve? Questions like these invite overlooked perspectives and help get everyone on the same page. Early in a groups life, norms emerge easily. Members look to one another for cues about whats appropriate. So, modeling norms that promote open communication and psychological safety matters enormously. If you want more candor, show it. If you want curiosity, ask thoughtful questions. As a group member, you have a choice in who you look to as a role model, turn to for advice, or endorse their suggestions. These are small ways of attributing informal leadership to other members. Over time, informal attributions of leadership can increase the status of other group members, thereby giving them more influence over group dynamics. Start small. Ask a better question, name an unspoken issue, or model the behavior you want to see. You dont need permission to improve a group. If you play your cards right, your group can become more than the sum of its parts. This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.
Category:
E-Commerce
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