Amazon Plans to Cut 30,000 Staffers

Hello! Great to see some of you at Day 1 of Disrupt today in downtown San Francisco. We had an amazing day at Moscone West. I thoroughly enjoyed my sit-downs with both Roelof Botha of Sequoia Capital and Astro Teller of X, Alphabet’s Moonshot Factory. You can find more from my conversation with Teller below; we’ll have more from my chat with Botha soon — we covered a lot of ground, including how he feels about the White House looking to take stakes in more companies. My colleague Kirsten also had a must-see interview with Tekedra Mawakana of Waymo. You can check out all of those interviews here (along with Round 1 of this year’s highly competitive Startup Battlefield Competition). There’s much more coming tomorrow — we’ll see you there.:) —CL

Top News

Amazon reportedly plans to cut up to 30,000 corporate jobs starting Tuesday as CEO Andy Jassy trims management layers and leans on AI-driven productivity gains to offset pandemic-era overhiring. Reuters has the scoop here.

Elon Musk briefly launched Grokipedia, an AI-written, rightward-tilting encyclopedia he pitched as a “truth-seeking” alternative to Wikipedia, but the site quickly crashed. It is now up again. The Washington Post has more here.

CEO of Alphabet’s X, Astro Teller, on What Makes a Moonshot

Image Credits: Getty Images for TechCrunch

By Aisha Malik

Astro Teller, CEO of X, Alphabet’s “moonshot factory,” where the company incubates the nearly impossible, shared a look into what makes a moonshot and detailed the company’s “fail fast” mantra at the TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 conference on Monday.

Notable companies that started out as moonshots from X’s moonshot factory include Waymo and Wing.

Teller noted that X has a “2% hit rate,” which means that most of the things the company tries don’t work out, and that’s okay.

He said X defines a moonshot as having three specific components. The first is that it needs to attempt to solve a huge problem in the world. Second, there needs to be some kind of product or service that, however unlikely, would make the problem go away. Last, there has to be a sort of breakthrough technology that would provide a glimmer of hope at solving that huge, real-world problem.

“If you worked at X, and you would just come up with a teleporter, you’ve got a moonshot story hypothesis, I would say, awesome, here’s a tiny amount of money, go see if you can prove that it’s wrong, because it probably is,” he said. “I don’t want you to make it work. I want you to get information about whether this is really a once-in-a-generation opportunity or not, and it’s okay if the answer is no.”

Teller went on to note that if someone is proposing a moonshot, and it sounds reasonable, the company isn’t interested, because that, by definition, wouldn’t be a moonshot. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea; that’s just not what X is looking for.

Massive Fundings

Hemab Therapeutics, a nine-year-old Copenhagen startup that develops novel prophylactic therapeutics for bleeding and thrombotic disorders, raised a $157 million Series C round led by Sofinnova Partners, with an unnamed asset management company, a sovereign wealth fund, and Avoro Capital Advisors as well as previous investors RA Capital Management, Novo Holdings, Access Biotechnology, Deep Track Capital, HealthCap, Invus, Avoro Ventures, Maj Invest Equity, and Rock Springs Capital also piling on. BioPharma Dive has more here.

Mercor, a two-year-old Menlo Park startup that hires tens of thousands of human experts to train commercial chatbots for customers like OpenAI and Anthropic, raised a $350 million round at a $10 billion valuation from Felicis, Benchmark, and General Catalyst. More here.

Stardust Solutions, a two-year-old startup based in Israel that develops aerosol-based geoengineering technology designed to reflect sunlight and reduce global temperatures, raised a $60 million round led by Lowercarbon Capital, with Attestor, Earth.now, Exor, Future Positive Capital, Future Ventures, Kindred Capital, Lauder Partners, Matt Cohler, Nebular, Never Lift Ventures, Orion Global Advisors, and Starlight Ventures also stepping up. Futurism has more here.

Wealthsimple, an 11-year-old Toronto company that offers digital investing, banking, and credit services to more than three million clients, is raising up to $536 million at a $7+ billion valuation. The round was co-led by Dragoneer Investment Group and GIC, with Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Power Corporation of Canada, IGM Financial, Iconiq, Greylock, and Meritech also investing. BetaKit has more here.

Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings

Ava, a five-year-old San Francisco startup that uses AI to analyze consumer credit data and automate refinancing and loan recommendations, raised a $15 million seed round led by Greylock, with additional participation from Transform VC, Firebolt, Twine Ventures, Sure Ventures, Defy.vc, and Burst Capital. More here.

Hemab Therapeutics, a nine-year-old Copenhagen startup that develops novel prophylactic therapeutics for bleeding and thrombotic disorders, raised a $157 million Series C round led by Sofinnova Partners, with an unnamed lasset management company, a sovereign wealth fund, and Avoro Capital Advisors as well as previous investors RA Capital Management, Novo Holdings, Access Biotechnology, Deep Track Capital, HealthCap, Invus, Avoro Ventures, Maj Invest Equity, and Rock Springs Capital also piling on. BioPharma Dive has more here.

Smaller Fundings

EPIC, a nine-year-old Dallas startup that operates a digital clearinghouse for loan payoffs and title releases in the automotive industry, raised a $10 million Series A round led by FM Capital, with Automotive Ventures also participating. More here.

Honey Health, a one-year-old Mountain View startup that automates back office work for healthcare organizations using AI agents that handle tasks like data fetching, chart prep, post-visit orders and refills, fax triage, and prior authorizations, raised a $7.8 million seed round. Pelion Ventures was the deal lead, with Streamlined, Burst Capital, and 8-Bit Capital also participating. MobiHealthNews has more here.

New Funds

Sequoia Capital launched a $750 million early-stage fund and a $200 million seed fund, reaffirming its focus on backing founders at the earliest stages as it doubles down on AI. TechCrunch has more here.

Going Public

Lenskart, a 15-year-old Gurugram company that styles itself as the “Amazon of eyewear” and is backed by SoftBank, Temasek, and Kedaara Capital, is targeting a valuation of up to $7.9 billion in a planned October 31st IPO on the National Stock Exchange of India. Reuters has more here.

People

Meta shifted longtime metaverse chief Vishal Shah to lead AI product development under Nat Friedman following hundreds of job cuts, signaling Zuckerberg’s full pivot toward artificial intelligence as the company’s top priority. Bloomberg has more here.

At TechCrunch Disrupt today, Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana said the company aims to hit one million weekly rides by 2026 as it expands into six more U.S. cities and London, pushing to prove safety and scale profitably. TechCrunch has more here.

Post-Its

Kamil Ruczynski @unable0_

did one of the cursor co-founders just leave?!

9:23 PM • Oct 27, 2025

200 Likes 5 Retweets

15 Replies

Essential Reads

Anthropic’s corporate-first strategy is paying off, with its AI business reportedly nearing $9 billion in annual revenue and outpacing OpenAI in enterprise adoption as Amazon and Google’s backing proves increasingly shrewd. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

Speaking of OpenAI, the company urged the White House to commit to building 100 gigawatts of new U.S. energy capacity annually, warning that “electrons are the new oil” as it pushes for massive power investments to sustain the AI race with China. CNBC has more here.

Setlist.fm, a Live Nation-owned site where fans catalog concert set lists in real time, has become a massive 9-million-entry database that’s reshaping how musicians plan tours and how fans experience live shows. The New York Times has more here.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said yesterday that the U.S. and China have finalized a TikTok deal that Trump and Xi will sign Thursday, handing control of U.S. operations to a new board backed by Oracle, Fox, Andreessen Horowitz, and Silver Lake. TechCrunch has more here.

Detours

A growing number of AI apps like Endless Summer are enabling users to escape reality by generating fake photos of themselves floating along the Seine or posing next to a Lamborghini.

“Pumpkin stylists” are cashing in on America’s fall obsession, charging hundreds or even thousands of dollars to deck out porches with custom gourd displays.