23andMe and also Regeneron

Top News

• 23andMe sold to Big Pharma: Biotech firm Regeneron has agreed to purchase 23andMe out of bankruptcy for the low low price of just $256 million! That’s quite a tumble for the once white-hot DNA testing startup that was valued at $6 billion in 2021. It also raises a host of privacy concerns, as a Big Pharma company will take possession of the genetic samples and data of millions of former 23andMe customers. They’ve promised to abide by 23andMe’s safety and privacy policies but… that definitely leaves some wiggle room!

• Firecrawl wants to hire AI agents: The YC-backed startup scrapes websites for data, then uses it to train LLMs, but with more guardrails and respect for intellectual property than your average scraping tool. The startup is seeking to hire AI agents ONLY for three new roles, mostly centering around designing and publishing SEO-friendly content that will help them rank in Google searches. On the show today, Jason suggested this was largely a marketing strategy to get media attention but, if so… it worked. We’re talking about them right now, in the media!

• Flowith drops Agent Neo: The AI workspace startup introduced what it calls the “world’s first infinite AI agent,” with the promise of managing more complex, intricate, multi-part tasks than competitors from OpenAI and Google. The intro video is heavy on examples and light on specifics, but it’s certainly a promising pitch.

TWiST500

On This Week in Startups, we’ve noticed that the vibes on Bluesky can be kind of… let’s say… high-strung. There’s a level of concern there about the world that’s intense and potentially even a bit unhealthy to carry around with you all day.

But content aside, as an actual business concern, things seem to be going rather well for the open source TWiST 500 social network.

Wired sat down for a Q&A with Bluesky CEO Jay Graber, who looks forward to the introduction of a slate of new features and experiences later this year, including identity verification, and the integration of community feeds from third-party services like SkyFeed and Graze into the main app.

(One of the key advantages of Bluesky over rival services is that it’s part of an open source platform, Atmosphere, where collaborators can build out new features and add-ons. While Bluesky users can post videos directly to the platform, they also have the option of downloading the Skylight app, which integrates seamlessly with Bluesky but functions more like a TikTok clone.)

Graber also teased potential routes to profitability, such as Bluesky subscriptions, sponsored posts, and one day, potentially, maybe even ads. That’s sure to be good news for “stakeholders” in its benefit corporation parent, Bluesky Social.

One final news item from today: Bluesky will debut a new feature, allowing the NBA to link out to real-time playoff games directly from its account. When the games are happening and the NBA posts to Bluesky, their “skeets” will appear inside a red box labeled LIVE. Clicking on the box will take a Bluesky user directly to the game. Hey, anything is possible when your social network doesn’t rely on ads, even external links. – Lon

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This Week in Startups

E2127: Jason, Lon and Alex reflect on Microsoft’s cutthroat move of laying off 6,000 staffers even as it rakes in record profits, in a demonstration of just how series tech companies are about austerity and leaning on advancements in AI. Plus, they wonder aloud if AI startup Windsurf is selling itself too early and greet Jeremy Redman of Airfive to talk about his bold new prepaid SaaS model.

E2126: Podcast giant and Florida transplant Dave Rubin is Jason’s special guest on a politics and media-heavy edition of TWiST. Plus Jason and Alex talk the Chime IPO, Databricks major bet on agentic AI, startups offering Postgres as a service, and more.

E2125: On a special Tuesday TWiST, Alex chats with founders from two cutting edge frontier technologies reshaping our world. First up, ZioSec hopes to improve cybersecurity by putting AI agents on the case. Then, hear about how Terabase wants to use mobile robotic factories to transform how we build and maintain our solar power infrastructure.

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