Top News | Z.ai mogs Google: As the world awaits Anthropic’s best models to make their way back to the market, Chinese AI labs are hard at work. Z.ai’s recently released GLM-5.2 model is scorching up the AI charts, with Artificial Analysis rating the release ahead of Google’s Gemini 3.5 Flash. Yes, Opus 4.8 and GPT-5.5 still best it, but GLM-5.2 sells tokens for a fraction of the cost. In other words, Z.ai just leapfrogged an American hyperscaler in terms of AI intelligence and is challenging the other two market leaders for market share. Imagine what startups will build on top of 5.2! OpenAI snags Google researcher: Speaking of Ls for our friends at Mountain View, Google has once again lost Noam Shazeer. The longtime Googler left in 2021 to build Character.AI, which Google bought, bringing Shazeer back into its halls. Two years later, the Gemini co-lead and “Attention Is All You Need” co-author is leaving once again, this time to OpenAI. Ouch. Intel secures the Apple bag? POTUS announced that Apple will use Intel fabs in the United States to make its chips in the future. Recall that Apple has become a quiet silicon giant, designing its own processors for its computers (both handheld and desktop-oriented). If Cupertino shifted its chip manufacturing from TSMC to Intel, it would be a coup for the American, and partially state-owned, company. Thus far, the companies aren’t commenting. Let’s see if Trump jumped the gun, or is wrong altogether.
| TWiST 500 | Let’s talk about South Korea. No, the nation is not a startup. It’s a country. But it has played a large role regarding Anthropic, a TWiST500 member company, and the AI lab’s fortunes in recent weeks. | WIRED reports that, before Amazon and other companies raised red flags to the government that Fable 5’s guardrails could be partially circumvented, there was SK Telecom. SKT is an investor in Anthropic, so it’s perhaps not a surprise that it was one of the 150 companies that the AI lab invited to test Mythos (the model family that gave us Fable, a more locked-down version of the underlying code). | It turns out that the USG asked Anthropic to “revoke SK Telecom’s access to Mythos,” which the American company quickly did. Why did it matter if a South Korean company had access to the model under the same rules as other global companies? The Trump administration considers the company to be too close to China. Fair or not, Anthropic had therefore already missed a step with the government. Then came Amazon. After a hiccup with Mythos (SK Telecom) and a disagreement over Fable (the durability of its proscriptions viz Amazon) led to the mess we’re currently in, with the world waiting for Anthropic and the White House to come to terms. | Good news from South Korea! Yesterday in Seoul, Anthropic's MD of International, Chris Ciauri, said that his company is “confident that in the coming days, the models will become available again.” A fitting place to announce the impending return of Fable, yeah? | The takeaway from the above is that access to AI models may fracture along both national and trade lines. If companies with ties to China, which I think would include all companies doing business there, cannot use Anthropic’s best technology, then it and OpenAI are limited in where they can sell. That’s both bad for American AI dominance and their businesses. | We’re not done sorting out how to regulate AI. But I think the current regulatory regime of the White House making it up as it goes, won’t do our leading startups well. — Alex | A message from Grasshopper Bank | Time is money. Don’t waste either. Go to grasshopper.bank/twist and get an exclusive $500 cash bonus just for opening an account. | This Week in Startups | E2302: Anthropic stabbed Cursor in the back. Then SpaceX swooped in with $60 billion. Today, TWiST connects the dots on the biggest deal in AI since the Microsoft-OpenAI partnership, and why it's a warning sign for every startup building on top of a frontier model. Jason is joined by Bling Capital’s Ben Ling, Banana Capital’s Turner Novak, and co-host Alex to go deep on the future of coding models, the current golden age of venture liquidity, OpenAI’s financials, and the ‘Four Ds’ of venture investing. The show closes with a tribute to Josh Baer, the founder of Capital Factory. | E2301: Lon and Jason chat with Skyler Chan, the founder of GRU Space. You may have heard of them during their viral press run earlier this year, after announcing plans to build a hotel on the Moon. (Reserve your spot today for just $1 million!) But beyond the marketing hype, GRU has a real plan to autonomously manufacture bricks out of lunar regolith, which can then be used to build any kind of structure, including an American moon base. PLUS we’re selecting the winner of our $5K bounty for a live AI podcast fact checker. Lon demos all three finalists, then Jason selects his fave. | E2300: Two days before SpaceX launches the largest IPO in history at a flat $135/share, our VC roundtable drops a scorcher: The top 1% of seed deals might actually be underpriced. Plus: the "Sequoia scam" dual-tranche controversy, tokens-for-equity deals, and whether Claude Fable 5 is a true step function.
Tomasz Tunguz (Theory Ventures), Michael Downing (Castalia Capital), and Paige Doherty (Behind Genius Ventures) join Alex to go deep on Seed investing, startup economics, AI spend, and the impact of smarter AI on the founder journey. | TWiST Partner Offers | Deel: Founders scale faster on Deel. Set up payroll for any country in minutes, hire anyone anywhere, get visas handled fast, and get back to building. Visit deel.com/twist to learn more. LinkedIn: Thanks to our partners at LinkedIn! Post your job for free at linkedIn.com/twist then promote it to get access to LinkedIn Jobs’ new AI assistant. Northwest Registered Agent: Get more when you start your business with Northwest. In 10 clicks and 10 minutes, you can form your company and walk away with a real business identity — Learn more at northwestregisteredagent.com/twist Sentry.io - Your team should be focused on shipping features — not chasing down bugs. New users can get $240 in free credits when they go to sentry.io/twist and use the code TWIST
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