Hi, I'm Dan Pramak and welcome to Axios Recap, presented by Facebook. Today is Wednesday, December 9th.

DoorDash stock is up, new job openings are down, according to ZipRecruiter, and we're focused

on the rise of mental wellness apps. We're now five weeks past November 3rd, but those of us who spent election night binge

watching CNN remember the commercials for meditation app Calm, which was perhaps the most

note-perfect marketing campaign of all time.

What happened next was that Calm jumped over 50 spots in the Apple App Store and was downloaded

tens of thousands of times.

Then yesterday, it announced $75 million in new venture capital funding at a $2 billion valuation.

That price tag, that giant price tag, reflects a booming market in mental

wellness, particularly as the pandemic has gotten on just about everyone's last nerve. But it also

comes with some big question marks, such as if companies and insurers incorporating calm into

their offerings are doing so as a substitute, arguably an inadequate substitute,

for mental health care, things like therapists and psychiatrists. Remember, over 40 million

Americans are believed to suffer from some form of mental illness, and even if they can find

help, they often can't afford to pay for it. So we want to dig into all things calm with its co-founder and co-CEO

Michael Acton Smith. That conversation in 15 seconds. We're joined now by Michael Acton Smith,

co-founder and co-CEO of Calm. So Michael, can we just start with some numbers here? I want to actually

go back to election night, so five weeks ago plus. Give me the background. When did you decide

you guys were going to do this kind of marketing campaign with CNN? And from your perspective,

how did it turn out? How did it convert? It was very last minute. You know, I wish we could

have said we planned it months in advance, but it was literally It was very last minute. You know, I wish we could have said we

planned it months in advance, but it was literally a day or two before. There was an opportunity,

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