In partnership with
It’s Thursday!
Hello, Curse and Coffee friends,
Today, we look at Palantir’s free nicotine for staff (and guests).
Hit reply and let us know what you think (we read all of your kind words).
Coffee at the ready…
The Big Sip
The take: The defence contractor building AI for the Pentagon now stocks free nicotine pouches like they're sparkling water.
What happened: Tobacco startups Lucy and Sesh installed branded vending machines in Palantir's Washington DC office, offering flavoured nicotine pouches free to employees and guests over 21.
Why it matters: Silicon Valley is rebranding an addictive stimulant as a workplace perk — and the FDA hasn't approved these products as safe, only permitted them to be marketed.
What to watch: Whether other tech firms follow suit, and whether the FDA draws a harder line before nicotine pouches become the new office kombucha.
Palantir's head of strategic engagement posted the vending machine photo on X like it was a product launch.
Sponsor Break
Before we slurp into today’s brew…
Here are some wordies from today’s sponsor.
Every headline satisfies an opinion. Except ours.
Remember when the news was about what happened, not how to feel about it? 1440's Daily Digest is bringing that back. Every morning, they sift through 100+ sources to deliver a concise, unbiased briefing — no pundits, no paywalls, no politics. Just the facts, all in five minutes. For free.
Here’s Your Brew
The typical Silicon Valley play.
Offer a stimulant for free, build a habit, let the user sort out the consequences. Tobacco companies handed out cigarette samples in the 1950s.
Tech companies hand out pouches in 2026.
New wrapper. Same playbook.
Where it gets uncomfortable:
These products were marketed to adult smokers as a less harmful alternative. Somewhere between the clinical trial and the Palantir vending machine, the customer changed.
Doctors say the nicotine compound hasn't.
One health-tech CEO got addicted. He'd never smoked before.
This is the same industry that builds screen time reminders and sells you a meditation app.
The concern about your well-being stops at the office kitchen.
Two Sides, One Mug
Curse and Coffee
Pro: Nicotine pouches are far less harmful than cigarettes. Adults are capable of weighing risks for themselves. If someone finds the product helps them focus during demanding work, and the company is transparent about what's in the machine, that's a reasonable choice between consenting adults and their employer.
Con: Marketing an addictive substance as a productivity tool — and giving it away free — creates new dependency in people who weren't nicotine users, without meaningful informed consent about long-term risks.
Our read: Harm reduction is a strong argument when you're helping smokers step down. It falls apart when the vending machine is recruiting people who never had a habit to reduce.
Receipt of the Day
Documents that Palantir pays to stock the machines and that Lucy and Sesh products are available to guests, not just staff.
Confirms the FDA has permitted these products to be marketed but has not approved them as safe. Companies are treating that gap as a green light.
Regulators haven't said it is one.
Spit Take
Cigarette smoking: 80-year low. Office nicotine vending machines: all-time high. — Fortune
Your Coffee Break Links (and water cooler chatter)
[Analysis] Inc: Forget granola bars — Palantir is providing nicotine as a workplace perk — Best headline of the week, and a sharp look at how biohacking culture launders old habits into new packaging.
[Report] CNBC: Defence tech companies dropping Claude after Pentagon blacklist — Palantir relies on Claude for classified work. Now the Pentagon says switch. The company stocking nicotine vending machines also can't decide which AI model to use for national security. Busy week.
Mugshot Poll 📊
Your employer puts a nicotine vending machine in the office. You:
You can read all our back issue newsletters for free here.
For the love of coffee, see you tomorrow!
Enjoy your Thursday, keep it caffeinated.
How did we do?
Thanks for reading!
Are you subscribing?
Join your crew of caffeinated sceptics today.
Be sure to get your daily Curse and Coffee fix by hitting the button below.
Open Monday to Friday.
Read yesterday’s newsletter about how your petrol bill is now a war premium here.
Bloomberg
Get Your Free Curse and Coffee Receipts Toolkit
Learn how to read any government/company PDF without crying!
Take advantage of what others miss. We teach you how to extract the gems from the dirt.
Share the Curse and Coffee newsletter with just 1 real person to download your Receipts Toolkit instantly. A field guide for caffeinated sceptics who want to pull signal from filings, datasets, and reports.
No law degree needed. A no-nap promise.
Refer to unlock and never struggle to identify opportunities in long, drawn-out documents again.
“Receipts over vibes. Always.”
Thank you for sharing…
And be sure to use your toolkit to extract max alpha from any document you read.
Stay Caffinated!