GM expands self-driving team... again!

Top News

• GM bets (again) on self-driving: After snapping up a former Tesla and Aurora denizen, American car giant General Motors is expanding its self-driving team, while also hiring back some former Cruise staffers. Cruise was GM’s prior attempt at building a self-driving taxi fleet, an effort that imploded after an accident involving a human and one of its cars. Currently, GM offers driver assist technology, but as Tesla, Waymo, Zoox, and others push ahead on self-driving, even Detroit iron can see how the future is forming.

• Chip tax: In a move that appeared to unblock promised licenses to export detuned chips to China, Nvidia and ARM will pay the government 15% of their sales of specific chips in the country. The totals should come to billions of dollars per quarter in sales, and potentially billions of dollars in new taxes for the American silicon companies. Critics argue that the new export tax is without precedent, and constitutes government overreach. Others worry that the move could bolster the Chinese AI industry.

• Reddit tightens access: In a move that will further erect barriers online, social service Reddit intends to limit the ability of the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine to index its website. Why? Because AI companies, unable to scrape Reddit directly, were scraping indexed versions of the website. Yes, this is tedious, but Reddit is a public company with investors and quarterly earnings to meet. And yes, this is tedious, but AI companies are hungry for novel data and Reddit generates plenty each and every day. Expect further escalation.

TWiST500

Perhaps the TWiST500 should be called the TWiST1300.

That’s how many AI startups are worth $100 million or more, with just under 500 sporting billion-dollar-plus valuations. The total value of those AI unicorns? $2.7 trillion, per CB Insights data cited by CNBC.

How do those figures stack up to the larger unicorn market? Crunchbase counts 1,600 unicorns around the world, worth some $6 trillion. So, by one crude measure we can say that AI unicorns are about one in three unicorns total, and are worth about half the total private-market value of unicorns, period.

On one hand, this is cause for celebration. It’s super great the world has built so many valuable AI companies so quickly. There were AI unicorns pre-ChatGPT, but the recent surge of venture capital into AI-focused companies has changed the unicorn rolls significantly.

On the other hand, it’s perhaps worrisome that there are 1,300 nine-figure AI startups given that we’re early in the LLM era — and the major model companies are still sorting out where and how they want to compete in the application layer. Put another way, a lot of startups could wind up getting tackled at the knees by the very companies they rent AI APIs from, given enough time.

We have a final 90 slots on the TWiST500. It’s going to be a bit Hunger Games-esque to make our final choices, but what an amazingly fun problem to have! — Alex

p.s. TWiST500 company xAI is working to combat more recent model releases from OpenAI and Anthropic by making its Grok 4 model generally available to “all users worldwide.” It’s a great time to be an AI consumer.

A message from Lemon.io

Hire pre-vetted remote developers and get 15% off your first 4 weeks of developer time at https://Lemon.io/twist

This Week in Startups

E2162: Jason and Lon are flying solo on this special TWiST edition! They’re talking about why Apple seems to have lots its innovative edge, and whether or not it’s time for Tim Cook to make for the exit. PLUS the new GPT-5 is here and it’s… kind of not that exciting, Ripple acquired Rail, Bumble’s running out of steam, and much much more.

E2161: On a huge, action packed TWiST, Jason and Alex investigate Luckin Coffee’s (potentially CCP-backed?) takeover of Manhattan, explain why Disney is sunsetting the iconic Hulu streaming app, probe the difference between open-weight and open-source AI models, look ahead at OpenAI’s big GPT-5 announcement, PLUS they welcome Zach Dive of Adam.new to explain why he made a deepfake ad starring JCal. The nerve!

E2160: It’s a packed news-heavy edition of This Week in Startups, with Jason and Alex asking which countries are leading the AI race (in terms of academics), debating whether covert agencies are spying on Meta’s superintelligence team, marveling at BYD’s mega car carrier, criticizing Lina Khan’s inappropriate Figma victory lap on social media, AND a big announcement. We’re bringing Founder University to the MENA region. Now that’s a podcast!

TWiST Partner Offers

• Sentry: Your team should be focused on shipping features — not chasing down bugs. - New users get 3 months free of the Business plan which covers 150k errors. Go to sentry.io/twist and use the code TWIST

• Northwest Registered Agent: Starting your business should be simple. With Northwest Registered Agent, you can form your entire business identity in just 10 clicks and 10 minutes. From LLCs to trademarks, domains to custom websites, they’ve got you covered. Get more privacy, more options, and more done—visit https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twist today!

• AlphaSense: Get deeper insights into your business with the power of AI search and market intelligence. Start with a free trial at https://www.alpha-sense.com/twist

TWiST wants to hear from YOU!

Along with our partners at Perspective AI, we’ve created a new AI-powered survey inviting our listeners to give us their feedback on the show, and specifically what kinds of topics they want to hear about on future episodes. Please take a few minutes to chat with Perspective’s friendly AI agent and share your thoughts on our podcast! We’d love to hear from you.

Founder U is coming to the MENA region!

Our 12-week pre-accelerator—designed to help early-stage founders build and grow—kicks off this fall in Saudi Arabia. The first cohort launches in Riyadh on November 3rd, followed by in-person and virtual sessions throughout the program. Founders in MENA: this is your chance to turn your idea into a business and get world-class insights on building a successful startup. Apply today: https://mena.founder.university/

Want to Work for This Week in Startups?

We’re looking to fill two in-person sales positions at our Austin, Texas HQ! First, a high-performing Sales Executive to help us seek out and promote clients, sponsorships, branded content, and more. Plus an experienced Sales Manager to lead, coach, and scale our sales executive team, while setting performance goals. Love the podcast and have B2B sales experience? We want to hear from you!

SF Live-Work Space Now Available

Need a flexible living and working environment in San Francisco? This thoughtfully designed loft-style residence at 787 Bryant St., the heart of the vibrant SOMA district and the city’s creative hub, is now available for rent or purchase. Check the listing for more details.

The TWiST500 newsletter is the new, updated, and improved TWiST Ticker.