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A quarter of YC's latest startups are letting AI write 95% of their code

Author

Maddie Naumann
March 06, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes

Top News

  • Scale AI Gig work under investigation: The $13.8B AI data-labeling startup is facing a federal investigation over worker misclassification and unpaid wages. Scale AI relies on a massive gig workforce to label AI training data for Big Tech, but some former workers claim they were underpaid and denied employee protections like overtime pay. The company disputes the claims, saying it provides "flexible work opportunities" and has been cooperating with regulators.

  • YC startups are letting AI write their code: A quarter of Y Combinator’s latest batch now have 95% of their codebases written by AI. These are highly technical founders who, just a year ago, would have built everything from scratch—now, AI handles most of the work while humans focus on debugging. The trend is coined "vibe coding," where devs write high-level prompts instead of actual code.

  • Reddit is rolling out tools to keep your posts from getting removed: Ever had a post deleted for breaking subreddit rules? This might be a thing of the past with Reddit’s new "Rules Check," a feature that flags possible rule violations before you post. Another update, "Post Recovery," lets users quickly reshare deleted posts to more appropriate subreddits. Reddit is also adding better subreddit suggestions while you type. The goal is to encourage more people to post—without getting moderated into oblivion.

TWiST500

Maddie here! Today, I’m adding Sesame AI to the TWiST500.

The company is building next-gen AI voice assistants and recently unveiled a demo of its Conversational Speech Model (CSM), featuring "Maya" and "Miles." These AI voices sound shockingly human—pausing naturally, laughing, and even correcting themselves mid-sentence. Some people are blown away; others are a little freaked out by it. Could this be the start of Her in real life??? (Hoping to get the founder on the pod next week for a live demo—should be fun.)

On the funding front, Sesame has raised $57.6M from Andreessen Horowitz, Spark Capital, and Matrix to develop its voice tech and AI-powered personal assistants. They’re also developing AI-powered glasses, aiming to create an always-on, voice-first interface.

With AI giants dominating the space, Sesame AI is betting that emotionally intelligent, natural-sounding voice assistants are the future. If they pull it off, AI interactions could feel more intuitive than ever—or maybe too real, depending on how you see it. Either way, I think this is definitely one to watch.

— Maddie


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