Everyone joins MonkeDAO for a different reason 🍌 Most stay for the same one: the community. Catch the story of @elfa_ai ’s founder on Monday Monke Spotlight, powered by @Kyzzen_io 🤝 What’s your MonkeDAO origin story?

On our episode, we mentioned that there's some footage floating around of Toy Story scenes that have gone through the layout phase, but not full animation. Here's one. The characters are lifeless and just getting dragged around the screen. But even in low-fidelity, the team can still use it to get a sense of if the story's working enough to proceed through the rest of the pipeline.

On May 4, 1944, at 20,000 feet above the plains of Kansas, a 25-year-old woman crawled through a cramped pressurized tunnel suspended over an open bomb bay and climbed into the cockpit of the most advanced bomber on Earth. Her name was Mildred “Micky” Axton. In that moment, she became the first woman known to fly the B-29 Superfortress—the aircraft that would later play a decisive role in ending World War II. Yet for decades, almost nobody knew her story. The B-29 was far more than a military airplane. It was one of the most secret projects of the war. Massive, technologically revolutionary, and heavily guarded, the bomber was so classified that workers were discouraged from discussing it even with family members. Access was restricted, and every detail was protected. Micky was never expected to be part of that world. In 1943, she joined the Women Airforce Service Pilots, better known as the WASPs. These women ferried military aircraft across the country, transported supplies, towed targets for live-fire exercises, and tested newly built planes before they entered service. The work was not combat duty, but it carried serious risks. After months of demanding training, Micky graduated and became a test pilot. She evaluated aircraft ranging from B-25s to B-26s and eventually worked with the B-29 program. While many pilots worried about flying experimental or troublesome aircraft, Micky willingly accepted the challenge. Someone had to fly them. Only weeks after joining Boeing in Wichita as a flight test engineer, she found herself aboard “Sweet Sixteen,” the sixteenth B-29 ever produced. During a routine flight, she was monitoring engine performance when an unexpected invitation arrived through the intercom. The chief engineer asked a simple question: “How would you like to fly it?” Micky didn't hesitate. She secured her parachute and carefully crawled through the narrow tunnel running above the bomb bay. Emerging on the other side, she entered the cockpit and settled into the pilot's seat. For roughly twenty minutes, she controlled the giant bomber herself. She banked the aircraft, adjusted power settings, and felt the response of a machine that represented the cutting edge of wartime aviation. It was a historic moment. Yet she could tell almost no one. The entire flight remained classified. The chief engineer documented the event in a letter, but the record was tucked away and largely forgotten. What should have been front-page news became a secret known only to a handful of people. The story of the WASPs followed a similar path. More than 1,000 women served in the program, flying millions of miles in dozens of aircraft types. They performed essential duties that freed male pilots for combat assignments. Thirty-eight lost their lives while serving. Despite their contributions, they received no military benefits, no official recognition, and no veteran status. When a WASP died, fellow pilots often collected money among themselves to help return her body home. In December 1944, the program was dissolved. The women who had proven their skill and courage were sent home, and for decades their service remained largely overlooked. Official recognition did not arrive until 1977, when legislation finally granted WASPs veteran status. By then, Micky was already 60 years old. She had returned to civilian life, teaching biology, science, and aeronautics in Wichita schools. She inspired generations of students, shared her passion for aviation, and quietly preserved the history of a program many Americans had forgotten. Then, decades later, the secret resurfaced. In 2006, Boeing publicly shared her story, and the long-hidden letter confirming her B-29 flight became widely known. More than sixty years after the event, the world finally learned that a young woman from Kansas had been the first female pilot to fly one of history's most famous bombers. Recognition continued to arrive. In 2009, a restored PT-19 training aircraft was dedicated in her honor and named “Miss Micky.” When asked what artwork should appear on the aircraft, she responded with characteristic humor, requesting a flattering swimsuit image. The aircraft still carries that tribute today. That same year, legislation was signed awarding the WASPs the Congressional Gold Medal, one of the highest honors bestowed by Congress. Sadly, Micky did not live to attend the ceremony. She passed away on February 6, 2010, at the age of 91. The medal presentation took place just over a month later, and her family accepted the honor on her behalf. Mildred Axton never flew combat missions and never dropped a bomb. Her legacy was something different. On that day in 1944, she challenged the belief that certain cockpits belonged only to men. By taking the controls of the B-29, she demonstrated that skill, courage, and determination are not limited by gender. For the rest of her life, she carried that lesson into classrooms, airfields, and conversations with young people who dreamed of reaching beyond the boundaries others set for them. The recognition may have arrived decades late. But the path she helped open has remained open ever since.

Elon Musk just said work is about to become optional. Not reduced. Not restructured. Optional. Musk: “AI and robotics will be able to provide all the goods and services that anyone could possibly want.” Every good. Every service. Every task you’ve ever been paid to perform. Done by something that never sleeps and never stops improving. The follow-up question was simple. What do people do when there’s nothing left to do. Musk: “People will be able to do whatever they want with their free time.” Humanity has chased that sentence for ten thousand years. It might be the most dangerous thing we ever catch. Strip away the job title. Strip away the paycheck. Strip away the alarm clock and the structure and the thing you tell strangers at a dinner party when they ask what you do. What’s left. That question is going to dismantle more people than any layoff notice ever could. We didn’t just build careers. We built selves. Entire identities organized around being useful. Being needed. Being the one who does the thing. The machine doesn’t replace your labor. It replaces the story you tell yourself about why you matter. Then Musk said something that landed harder than anything else in the conversation. Musk: “What I predict to happen is not the same as what I want to happen.” The man building this future just told you it’s not the one he’d choose. That’s not pessimism. That’s the rarest thing in tech right now. Honesty from someone with the vantage point to see what’s coming. He’s not pitching a utopia. He’s reading the math out loud. And the math doesn’t care what anyone prefers. We spent all of human history trying to free ourselves from labor. We’re about to discover that the struggle was the meaning. Not the obstacle to a good life. The architecture of one. The question Musk is really asking isn’t economic. It’s whether humanity can survive getting exactly what it always wanted.

🎙️ The Storybook Voice Challenge starts tomorrow! Let your little one become the voice behind their favorite storybook! 📚✨ Read, record, and share — and get a chance to win limited-edition rewards! 📍 This challenge is open to users in Mainland China and Indonesia only. ⏰ Challenge Period: Now – Oct 8 🏆 Winners Announced: Oct 9 – Oct 16 How to join: 1️⃣ Update Giggle Academy to V1.39.0 2️⃣ Tap the event icon in the top-left corner of the home page 3️⃣ Choose a favorite storybook and record your voice 4️⃣ Submit your recording and you’re in! 🎉 ❤️ Want more likes? Share your entry’s page with family and friends. They can listen to the recording and like it directly from the link! 🎁 Rewards: Every child who submits an entry will receive a limited storybook outfit set for use in the app. 🔊 The Top 10 entries by likes will win a Bluetooth speaker, with separate rankings for Mainland China and Indonesia. Ready to bring a story to life with your voice? 🎬📖 #GiggleAcademy# #StorybookVoiceChallenge# #KidsLearning# #LearningThroughPlayw#

One of the biggest misconceptions about the divine feminine is that she's supposed to be endlessly soft. Yes, she nurtures. She heals. She creates. She loves. She brings life into the world. But that's only half the story. The divine feminine is not just the mother. She is also the warrior. She is the force that protects what is sacred and destroys what threatens it. People love feminine energy when it's gentle, agreeable, and comforting. They forget the goddesses who went to war. The ones who faced monsters. The ones who brought storms, wielded fire, and stood between chaos and what they loved. Creation and destruction are not opposites. They are partners. A forest cannot grow without old growth falling. A new chapter cannot begin without another ending. A boundary means nothing without the strength to enforce it. The divine feminine is compassion with teeth. She knows when to hold. She knows when to let go. And she knows when something has to end so something better can begin. Women are creators and destroyers. Sometimes the most sacred thing a woman can do is nurture what deserves to live. Sometimes the most sacred thing she can do is refuse, resist, and destroy what no longer should.

Beware of the story you tell yourself. The story we tell ourselves is the most powerful one in the world. Eventually, we start believing it, even when it’s not true. While a positive story by itself won’t guarantee a good outcome, a negative one will certainly prevent it from happening. “If an idiot were to tell you the same story every day for a year, you would end by believing it.” — Horace Mann, h/t @shaneparrish

One of the original developers of The Witcher says turning the remake into an open-world game is far more complicated than just making the map bigger. Artur Ganszyniec, lead story designer on the original game, explained that the first Witcher was built around smaller areas where developers always knew where players would go next. This made it easier to control the story and maintain pacing. He cited Lake Vizima as an example: in the original, players follow a specific route, but in an open-world version they could grab a boat and head straight to key locations, skipping major story moments. As a result, the team cannot simply open up the map. They must also redesign quests, story events, and progression to ensure everything works regardless of where players explore.

The story today about Silver Lake, a premier private equity firm with over $100B in assets focused on tech, potentially looking to acquire $WDAY likely puts a floor under software sector for some time. Workday prior to today’s 18% move higher had been down 18% over the past year (8/12/25-8/12/26) vs $IGV (the software ETF) which was down 6% and the S&P up 20%. It was considered one of the names most likely to be disintermediated by AI. PE firms 1) use debt which increases risk if they are wrong, 2) the cost of longer-term debt is the highest in nearly 20 years and 3) they need to feel comfortable about terminal value given exits are typically now in 5-7 years. This is a much harder bar to clear than a typical public market investor who has daily liquidity if they change their mind or a strategic acquirer that may have other synergistic reasons to do the deal. Also the size of this deal makes the bar even harder to clear. With a closing market cap today of over $50B for Workday, if it were to occur this would rival the prior record breaking technology PE deal for Electronic Arts of ~$55B that Silver Lake was also involved in. This news follows the results from $TEAM last week, another name that investors have put in the AI disintermediation basket, which rallied 35% the next day in reaction to earnings and is still down 2% from 8/12/25-8/12/26. I continue to believe that AI native companies like Anthropic and OpenAI which I believe are now likely running at over $100B in annualized revenue run rate combined vs $29B to start the year will increasingly put under pressure: 1) point solution software companies that are not system of record, security or gaming, 2) headcount growth as AI empowers current employees and 3) IT services vendors. Every public company will need to find cost savings somewhere given their rapid ramp in AI spending if they want to make Wall Street forecasts. Having said that, these two recent events should help put a floor under the software sector as a whole and may help it to outperform between now and year-end given the massive underperformance and multiple compression seen since it peaked in October of last year.