Top News | Apple will bring GPT-5 to iOS: Apple has partnered with OpenAI since mid-2024, allowing its customers to call on ChatGPT when Siri can’t summon an answer. While Apple’s AI efforts have been panned in the last year, iOS and MacOS users will soon have access to GPT-5 with the release of iOS 26, iPadOS 26, and macOS Tahoe 26, 9to5Mac reports. That means GPT-5 will arrive on your mobile phone, tablet, or computer next month. That’s not instant, but is faster than Apple’s usual AI pace. Decart raises $100M: We’ve shown Decart’s world models on TWiST before as examples of how video games and other virtual environments could become real-time creations instead of precompiled products. The company also licenses its AI optimization tech to both “cloud providers and AI laboratories,” SiliconAngle reports. Its technology and revenue are growing quickly enough that Sequoia, Benchmark, Zeev, and Aleph wanted to raise their bets on its future. Is Amazon eating the advertising market? Shares of The Trade Desk collapsed today, falling around 39% in midday trading. Why? The company told investors that some of its largest customers are facing an uncertain economic environment due to rising tariff rates around the world. As well, some capital allocators are worried that Amazon is eating into its market in a manner that could limit future growth. From hot to not — The Trade Desk shows it can happen in just a few quarters.
| TWiST500 | Amongst all the chatter concerning GPT-5 and just how good it is, something critical is getting overlooked: Price. | GPT-5’s list prices are cheaper than flagship models from its rivals, meaning that while OpenAI’s latest might not have lit the benchmark charts as afire as some expected, it still brings something critical to market. | And not just for OpenAI. The new model will provide a boost to the capability of ChatGPT, and thus hundreds of millions of weekly active humans, but also aids startups — many of which are on the TWiST500 — that depend on third-party models to power their apps. TechCrunch reports that the economics of some breakout AI startups are miserable: | Insiders tell TechCrunch that for all the popularity and hype around AI coding assistants, they can actually be massively money-losing businesses. Vibe coders generally, and Windsurf in particular, can have such expensive structures that their gross margins are “very negative,” one person close to Windsurf told TechCrunch. Meaning it cost more to run the product than the startup could charge for it. |
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| What makes margins better? Lower costs of goods sold. And if your largest COGS input is AI model usage, a cheaper model that is also pretty darn smart should prove a win. | Not that I expect GPT-5 to make the Cursors of the world instantly GAAP profitable, but by building something better and cheaper, OpenAI could be serving up economic salvation to an entire generation of unicorns. Usage patterns aren’t clear yet, so we don’t know how much adoption GPT-5 will wind up clocking, but for now the tea leaves augur well. — Alex | A message from Monarch Money | Get control of your overall finances with Monarch Money. Visit monarchmoney.com/twist for half off on your first year. | This Week in Startups | E2161: On a huge, action packed TWiST, Jason and Alex investigate Luckin Coffee’s (potentially CCP-backed?) takeover of Manhattan, explain why Disney is sunsetting the iconic Hulu streaming app, probe the difference between open-weight and open-source AI models, look ahead at OpenAI’s big GPT-5 announcement, PLUS they welcome Zach Dive of Adam.new to explain why he made a deepfake ad starring JCal. The nerve! | E2160: It’s a packed news-heavy edition of This Week in Startups, with Jason and Alex asking which countries are leading the AI race (in terms of academics), debating whether covert agencies are spying on Meta’s superintelligence team, marveling at BYD’s mega car carrier, criticizing Lina Khan’s inappropriate Figma victory lap on social media, AND a big announcement. We’re bringing Founder University to the MENA region. Now that’s a podcast! | E2159: Alex is back with three more interviews with some of our favorite TWiST 500 founders. Dr. Hon Weng Chong of Cortical Labs walks us through the basics of biological computing. Then, Turing founder Jonathan Siddarth teaches us about LLM benchmarking and why these tests need to get much more difficult FAST. Finally, Brendan Foody of Mercor tells us how they’re using AI to rethink the hiring process. | TWiST Partner Offers | Lemon.io: Hire pre-vetted remote developers and get 15% off your first 4 weeks of developer time at https://Lemon.io/twist CLA: Innovation takes balance. Our CPAs, consultants, and wealth advisors can help you get from startup to where you want to end up. Get started now at CLAconnect.com/tech. .TECH: Say it without saying it. Head to get.tech/twist or your favorite registrar to get a clean, sharp .tech domain today.
| TWiST wants to hear from YOU! | Along with our partners at Perspective AI, we’ve created a new AI-powered survey inviting our listeners to give us their feedback on the show, and specifically what kinds of topics they want to hear about on future episodes. Please take a few minutes to chat with Perspective’s friendly AI agent and share your thoughts on our podcast! We’d love to hear from you. | Founder U is coming to the MENA region! | Our 12-week pre-accelerator—designed to help early-stage founders build and grow—kicks off this fall in Saudi Arabia. The first cohort launches in Riyadh on November 3rd, followed by in-person and virtual sessions throughout the program. Founders in MENA: this is your chance to turn your idea into a business and get world-class insights on building a successful startup. Apply today: https://mena.founder.university/ | Want to Work for This Week in Startups? | We’re looking to fill two in-person sales positions at our Austin, Texas HQ! First, a high-performing Sales Executive to help us seek out and promote clients, sponsorships, branded content, and more. Plus an experienced Sales Manager to lead, coach, and scale our sales executive team, while setting performance goals. Love the podcast and have B2B sales experience? We want to hear from you! | SF Live-Work Space Now Available | Need a flexible living and working environment in San Francisco? This thoughtfully designed loft-style residence at 787 Bryant St., the heart of the vibrant SOMA district and the city’s creative hub, is now available for rent or purchase. Check the listing for more details. | The TWiST500 newsletter is the new, updated, and improved TWiST Ticker. |
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