Brynn Putnam, who previously built Mirror (the fitness hardware that Lululemon acquired), just raised $20 million for Board, a startup explicitly described as "together tech," designed to get people into the same physical room. The same week, The Atlantic published a profile of the solitude influencer, a growing content category built around people who have no friends and love it. These two stories are not contradictory. They are the same market, approached from opposite ends.

The Loneliness Economy Bets Both Ways

The loneliness economy has been bifurcating for years. One branch invests in frictionless connection (group chats, social apps, shared spaces). The other monetizes the aesthetic of opting out entirely. The solitude influencer isn't selling isolation. They're selling a fantasy of intentional aloneness to people who are involuntarily lonely, which is a different product entirely. Board, by contrast, is making a physical object, a game system, that requires presence. It's a hardware bet on the thesis that screens can't fully substitute for bodies in a room. The Atlantic's philosophy piece on existing this week is quietly relevant here: the miracle of being alive is also the miracle of being alive with others, which is a case neither the solitude influencer nor the social app fully makes.

Startups Betting on Presence: The Anti-Scroll Play

Microsoft's Build conference this week featured heavy Linux integration and developer tools, all oriented toward remote and distributed workflows. The infrastructure is getting better at keeping people apart. Which is exactly the market condition that makes a "together tech" hardware play interesting. Board has already sold thousands of units without broad distribution, which is the kind of signal that suggests demand is real, not manufactured.