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By Stephanie Palazzolo

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Recent Editions

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What’s Helping Perplexity’s 60% Gross Profit Margin

By Laura Mandaro and Sri Muppidi · May 19, 2025 7:31am PDT

Earlier today we published a deep dive on Perplexity’s financials. The three-year-old startup’s AI powered search engine has made it one of the most highly valued and fastest growing AI startups. Supporting that growth is expensive. As a sign of its growing popularity, the number of questions people have asked the search engine increased... Earlier today we published a deep dive on Perplexity’s financials. The three-year-old startup’s...

Photo courtesy of K-Scale Labs

The Open-Source Robotics Startup That Caught OpenAI’s Eye

By Rocket Drew · May 15, 2025 7:15am PDT

In the last year, dozens of new robotics startups have launched. One of them, a recent graduate of the Y Combinator accelerator, is trying to distinguish itself by developing open-source AI models and other software for the humanoid robots it plans to sell, an increasingly popular approach in the sector. The proposition has attracted... In the last year, dozens of new robotics startups have launched. One of them, a recent graduate...

Dario Amodei. Photo by Getty

Anthropic’s Upcoming Models Will Think… And Think Some More

By Stephanie Palazzolo · May 14, 2025 7:00am PDT · 1 comment

The race to develop reasoning models that “think” harder is at full force. At Anthropic, which arrived later than OpenAI and Google to the reasoning race, two upcoming models are taking the concept of “thinking” to the extreme.Anthropic has new versions of its two largest models—Claude Sonnet and Claude Opus—set to come out in the upcoming... The race to develop reasoning models that “think” harder is at full force. At Anthropic, which...

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Google’s ‘Always-On’ Coding Agent Is Coming. Where Is OpenAI’s?

By Stephanie Palazzolo · May 13, 2025 7:00am PDT

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Google’s ‘Always-On’ Coding Agent Is Coming. Where Is OpenAI’s?

By Stephanie Palazzolo · May 13, 2025 7:00am PDT

AI coding assistants today have saved software engineers lots of time. The CEOs of Amazon, Google and many others can’t stop talking about it during their earnings calls.But even the most popular AI coding tools today often work side-by-side with human engineers and require a lot of prompting and hand-holding.That’s about to change.Google, for... AI coding assistants today have saved software engineers lots of time. The CEOs of Amazon, Google...

Sam Altman. Photo by Getty

Altman On Dyson Spheres, Colonizing the ‘Light Cone’

By Amir Efrati · May 12, 2025 11:04am PDT

By hiring Instacart CEO Fidji Simo to manage OpenAI’s business, CEO Sam Altman can focus on his primary ambition: attaining artificial superintelligence. The term refers to technology that would help humans solve fundamental scientific challenges around energy and physics to become multiplanetary, colonizing other planets and eventually other... By hiring Instacart CEO Fidji Simo to manage OpenAI’s business, CEO Sam Altman can focus on his...

Robotic arms harvesting crops inside a greenhouse. Photo by Getty.

OpenAI’s Big Hire; Farming Robots Seed New Startups, Despite Setbacks

By Rocket Drew · May 8, 2025 7:42am PDT

Before we get into today’s column, OpenAI late Wednesday evening announced the hire of Fidji Simo, currently the Instacart CEO and a member of OpenAI’s board, in the newly created position of CEO of OpenAI Applications, to run “the product, business, and other company functions,” reporting to CEO Sam Altman. (My colleagues Jessica Lessin and... Before we get into today’s column, OpenAI late Wednesday evening announced the hire of Fidji Simo...

Mira Murati. Photo by Getty

VCs Are Giving AI Founders Ever More Leverage

By Stephanie Palazzolo · May 7, 2025 7:00am PDT

These days, investors are pulling out all the stops and getting more creative to convince founders of AI startups—particularly those with experience as executives at AI labs like OpenAI and Anthropic—to take their money, VCs tell me.The latest example we wrote about concerned Thinking Machines Lab, the buzzy startup cofounded by ex-OpenAI chief... These days, investors are pulling out all the stops and getting more creative to convince...

Sam Altman speaks onstage during Sam Altman’s World Celebration for the US Launch at Fort Mason Center on April 30, 2025 in San Francisco, California.

What OpenAI’s Governance Reversal Means

By Stephanie Palazzolo, Natasha Mascarenhas and Amir Efrati · May 6, 2025 7:30am PDT · 1 comment

Sam Altman speaks onstage during Sam Altman’s World Celebration for the US Launch at Fort Mason Center on April 30, 2025 in San Francisco, California.

What OpenAI’s Governance Reversal Means

By Stephanie Palazzolo, Natasha Mascarenhas and Amir Efrati · May 6, 2025 7:30am PDT · 1 comment

OpenAI’s decision on Monday to change course on its corporate restructuring looks to be a smart business choice. OpenAI has avoided a possible protracted conflict with Delaware—whose attorney general oversees nonprofits registered in the state, like OpenAI and implied she had something to do with the about-face. And OpenAI contends the... OpenAI’s decision on Monday to change course on its corporate restructuring looks to be a smart...

From left to right: Andrew White, FutureHouse head of science and cofounder; Michael Skarlinski, member of technical staff; and Sam Rodriques, CEO and cofounder. Photo courtesy of FutureHouse.

The Startup Building an AI Scientist

By Stephanie Palazzolo · May 5, 2025 7:00am PDT

Scores of scientists are using reasoning AI models to help them come up with hypotheses and experiments in fields like nuclear fusion, biology and pathogen detection. However, some researchers believe that startups with backgrounds in specific domains like biology or chemistry would be better equipped to build the AI models for those domains,... Scores of scientists are using reasoning AI models to help them come up with hypotheses and...

Art by Clark Miller.

Why Some Robot Startups Could Gain From Tariffs

By Rocket Drew · May 1, 2025 7:00am PDT · 2 comments

Among tech companies, robotics companies are particularly vulnerable to tariff hikes, given that many robot parts come from China. The import taxes mean higher costs that robotics firms will have to either absorb or pass on to customers—a setback to their business either way. But a number of startups that employ overseas workers to control... Among tech companies, robotics companies are particularly vulnerable to tariff hikes, given that...

Meta's chief product officer, Chris Cox, on stage at LlamaCon 2025. Screenshot via YouTube.

Meta Plays Catch-Up, But Is It Working?

By Kalley Huang · Apr 30, 2025 7:00am PDT · 1 comment

Meta Platforms kicked off its first-ever LlamaCon, a conference for AI developers, on Tuesday, unveiling a fleet of new products. They included a standalone smartphone app for its Meta AI assistant and a preview of an application programming interface for developers to access its large language model Llama. The releases put Meta on par with its... Meta Platforms kicked off its first-ever LlamaCon, a conference for AI developers, on Tuesday,...

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XAI Investors on How The Startup Can Win; Is Reinforcement Learning Over?

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Apr 29, 2025 7:00am PDT · 1 comment

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XAI Investors on How The Startup Can Win; Is Reinforcement Learning Over?

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Apr 29, 2025 7:00am PDT · 1 comment

Before we get into today’s column, I’d like to give a big thank you to all our subscribers who joined us at our “Financing the AI Revolution” conference yesterday. It was amazing to get to meet so many of you.One of the most interesting discussions for me came during our panel on how private and public investors are thinking about investing in... Before we get into today’s column, I’d like to give a big thank you to all our subscribers who...

Ryan Kolln, CEO of Appen, speaks onstage during HumanX AI Conference 2025 at Fontainebleau Las Vegas on March 11, 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Image via Getty.

The Data Labeling Company Serving Chinese Model Builders

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Apr 28, 2025 7:00am PDT

It’s no secret that the success of today’s large language models wouldn’t be possible without the armies of humans creating the data, like solved math or coding problems, for the AI to be trained on. But as important as data labeling companies—such as Scale AI, Turing and Invisible—have been to the AI sector, they’re not absolutely crucial.... It’s no secret that the success of today’s large language models wouldn’t be possible without the...

The Startups Developing Robot Hands; OpenAI’s Revenue Hopes

The Startups Developing Robot Hands; OpenAI’s Revenue Hopes

By Rocket Drew · Apr 24, 2025 7:00am PDT

Before we get into Thursday’s column, be sure to read my colleague Sri’s story on OpenAI’s revenue forecasts. The projections go a long way in explaining why investors led by SoftBank think OpenAI is worth $260 billion. While subscriptions to OpenAI’s pioneering ChatGPT will continue to make up the majority of revenue for the next five years,... Before we get into Thursday’s column, be sure to read my colleague Sri’s story on OpenAI’s...

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OpenAI’s Bid To Get Google’s Search Data

By Erin Woo · Apr 23, 2025 7:00am PDT

Hello! Erin here, reporting from the E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse in Washington, D.C. as federal judge Amit Mehta oversees a hearing on how to remedy Google’s illegal search monopoly.Much of the trial so far has centered not on Google’s traditional search engine—famous for its blue links—but on the AI-powered search market, as the government... Hello! Erin here, reporting from the E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse in Washington, D.C. as...

Stock photo via Getty

Three New Ways Developers Are Using AI

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Apr 22, 2025 7:00am PDT

Stock photo via Getty

Three New Ways Developers Are Using AI

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Apr 22, 2025 7:00am PDT

It’s no surprise that software developers love AI tools. (Just look at the revenue growth of Anysphere, the creator of the popular AI-powered code editing software Cursor, from my colleague Natasha’s feature on the startup last month.)You’ve probably read lots about the most obvious ways that developers are using AI models to speed up software... It’s no surprise that software developers love AI tools. (Just look at the revenue growth of ...

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OpenAI’s Agent Moment; Cursor’s AI Hallucination

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Apr 21, 2025 7:30am PDT · 1 comment

Google’s role in the AI sector will be in the spotlight this week, as the Justice Department makes its case in a Washington court for how to deal with what the court has already found to be Google’s illegal search monopoly. We’ll keep you updated.Meanwhile, looking back at last week, we had both an AI snafu and—perhaps more importantly—OpenAI’s... Google’s role in the AI sector will be in the spotlight this week, as the Justice Department...

Dario Amodei. Photo by Getty

Anthropic Invests in Startup That Decodes AI Models

By Rocket Drew · Apr 17, 2025 7:00am PDT

Anthropic has made its first investment in another startup, putting $1 million into Goodfire, a one-year-old startup that helps AI developers understand the inner workings of their AI models, according to a person with direct knowledge of the investment.The check is a small slice of the $50 million raised by the San Francisco-based startup in a... Anthropic has made its first investment in another startup, putting $1 million into Goodfire, a...

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OpenAI’s ‘Yeet’ Social Feed Aims to Fix ChatGPT Usability

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Apr 16, 2025 7:00am PDT · 1 comment

If you didn’t think OpenAI had enough on its plate already, you might now. Yesterday we got news—confirmed by my colleague Amir—that the company is developing an X-like social feed within ChatGPT, in part so that users can share how they’re using the chatbot to solve problems or create images.There are a couple reasons why this sort of product... If you didn’t think OpenAI had enough on its plate already, you might now. Yesterday we got news—...

Sarah Owens. Image courtesy of Argonne National Laboratory

OpenAI’s Innovator’s Dilemma; Gemini’s Product Lead on What’s Next

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Apr 15, 2025 7:00am PDT

Sarah Owens. Image courtesy of Argonne National Laboratory

OpenAI’s Innovator’s Dilemma; Gemini’s Product Lead on What’s Next

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Apr 15, 2025 7:00am PDT

ChatGPT is growing like gangbusters, but many people still don’t know how to utilize it properly or find it to be intimidating.Take Sarah Owens, a molecular biologist at Argonne National Laboratory, who we cited in an article we published Monday as a happy new user of OpenAI’s technology. While she’s got some good results from ChatGPT in... ChatGPT is growing like gangbusters, but many people still don’t know how to utilize it properly...