Amazon won't share tariff-related price increases after all

Top News

• Amazon’s short-lived tariff pricing: Amazon executives quickly shot down a report from Punchbowl News, which had suggested that the e-retail giant planned to visually display the impact of President Trump’s tariffs on individual imported items (especially from China). According to spokesman Tim Doyle, the tariff pricing messages were “never approved” and were only being considered for the “ultra low cost Amazon Haul store.” But was this an inaccurate report, or did Amazon back down after the White House labeled the move a “hostile and political act” and POTUS called founder Jeff Bezos personally to complain? We may never know.

• The latest from LlamaCon: Meta’s inaugural LlamaCon Developer Conference is underway at the company’s HQ in Menlo Park, CA. In a keynote, Chief Product Officer Chris Cox revealed that Llama has been downloaded over 1.2 billion times to date. Meta also introduced a direct ChatGPT competitor within their AI app, and launched Llama API, which pairs with Meta’s SDKs to give developers the ability to layer services, tools, and applications on top of the model. PLUS, later on today, Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg will sit down for a fireside chat with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. You can stream the entire event on the Meta for Developers Facebook page and YouTube channel.

• Duolingo switches to AI contractors: In an all-hands email sent to Duolingo staffers, the language education app’s co-founder and CEO Luis von Ahn announced that they’re becoming “AI-first.” Essentially, this means hiring human freelancers only after everyone is absolutely certain AI can’t automate their tasks instead. Von Ahn insists this isn’t about “replacing ‘Duos’ with AI” but removing bottlenecks, limiting “repetitive tasks,” and increasing efficiency.

TWiST500

Sure, TWiST 500 mainstays Hugging Face are best known as the essential hub and platform for AI developers, hosting the Git-based code repositories, datasets, and pre-trained models that make fresh AI apps and releases possible.

But the company itself is more than just a famous website. They also develop their own machine learning models, datasets, and apps; in fact, Hugging Face originally launched in 2016 as a chatbot app for teens.

This week, the company’s releasing another product that has nothing to do with hosting other people’s code. They’re planning to release SO-101, a programmable, 3D-printed robotic arm which can complete basic tasks, like picking up objects and then setting them back down. It’s an update to SO-100, Hugging Face’s previous robot arm, released just last year. Both come out of the company’s robotics division, LeRobot. (They’re French, after all.)

SO-101 improves on previous incarnations in a number of ways, and it can be trained via “reinforcement learning,” allowing it to adapt to different kinds of tasks and retrieving various kinds of objects. The Arm will retail for a surprisingly affordable $100, but thanks to tariffs, this could reach as much as $500 depending on your location and supplier. USA! USA! – Lon

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This Week in Startups

E2118: On an all-new TWiST, Jason, Alex, and Lon are SHOCKED by Meta’s celebrity-voiced chatbots, which were caught flirting with underage users by Wall Street Journal reporters. Then they’re considering Palo Alto Networks’ purchase of Protect AI, debating another exciting match-up in our Founder Friday bracket competition, AND Alex sits down with Formulate founder Osmaan Shah.

E2117: On Friday’s TWiST, Jason, Alex, and Lon checked out Slate Auto’s customizable $25K EV truck, considered whether Discord is circling an IPO, and gauged Uber’s new collaboration with Volkswagen. Plus aggressive moves from Perplexity, another Founder Friday bracket matchup, AND Alex sits down with Tailscale CEO Avery Pennarun to talk internet networking: what it is and why it may just fuel the next huge wave of innovation.

E2116: Jason’s calling in from New York for an absolutely JAM-PACKED episode of TWiST. He’s chatting with Alex and Lon about the insane growth curve of AI startup Cursor, evaluating whether or not Uber is using “dark patterns” to hold on to its top customers, AND gauging the long-term effects of tariff uncertainty on the market. PLUS we’ve got a chat with GoShare CEO Shaun Savage on the importance of obsessing about customers AND another exciting Founder Friday match-up.

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