Top News
US lifts blocks on Mythos and Fable: Anthropic’s legendary, widely-feared frontier models have been unavailable to anyone outside the company since June 12. That’s when the US government placed export controls on them, out of concern that bad actors overseas could use them to mount cyberattacks on the US. Well, the danger has apparently passed (?) and the government will allow resumed access to both models, starting today. Mythos remains restricted to “select customers,” with specific approval from the White House, while Fable — a version of Mythos with guardrails against searching for particularly sensitive topics — is more widely distributed. (Anthropic is opening it up to all subscribers through July 7.) TechCrunch notes that, with Chinese open source models moving closer to the performance of US frontier releases with each new update, the window of exclusivity on codebreaking abilities like Mythos’s has already been narrowing. Many in the industry also pointed out the danger of holding back frontier models from the very companies and researchers who should be helping to prepare critical infrastructure for the next generation of cybersecurity.
Meta to rate limit your smart glasses: The new announcement specifically impacts the glasses’ “Conversation Focus” feature, which raises the volume on the person you’re speaking with in particularly noisy environments. Users with the baseline $19.99 Meta One Premium subscription get just 3 free hours of “Conversation Focus” per month; premium subscribers can access it for 15 hours. (Bear in mind, the glasses don’t actually require a subscription to use or wear; just the AI-powered features.) The Verge notes that “Conversation Focus” is an odd feature on which to apply this sort of limit, as the entire infrastructure powering the feature lives on your device, and it doesn’t require an internet connection to use. It’s possible Meta made a deal with a third party service for the feature, and gets charged based on usage.
Oxmiq closes $35M Series A: The startup designs GPU architecture that chip and AI infrastructure companies can license for their own products. The thesis is essentially that the entire compute stack needs to be re-architected for the post-tokenmaxxing, austerity era, when AI companies are trying to squeeze better, faster, and cheaper results out of each prompt. Oxmiq’s stated, eventual goal is to cut the cost of converting electrons into AI tokens by as much as 50x. This week, they announced a $35M Series A, bringing their total funding to $60 million.
TWiST 500
Over to jolly old England, where UK autonomous vehicle interest Wayve has filed to sell shares on the London Stock Exchange’s new Private Securities Market. As the title implies, this is NOT the same as going public. The new venue allows for trading in private companies through a regulatory framework known as PISCES (Private Intermittent Securities and Capital Exchange System).
Basically, companies offer scheduled, occasional auction windows during which their shares can be traded. Investors go through an intermediary like a bank of broker, known as a Registered Auction Agent (RAA), that actually place trades on their behalf. Proceeds then go to pre-existing shareholders, not the companies themselves, as in any other secondary market.
Wayve is an “Embodied AI” company which developed a self-learning “AI driver” and foundation model, serving as a “brain” for self-driving vehicles. They’ll become the first major company to participate in the LSE’s Private Securities process, holding their first “closed auction” on July 8. The company was most recently valued at $8.6 billion, and will allow staffers to sell up to $85 million on the secondary market.
Another big T500 name raising funds this week is Together AI, an inference firm founded by a cluster of Stanford researchers and grads. They operate an “AI Native Cloud,” a full stack for training, fine-tuning and deploying AI models, spinning up new organizations and enterprises, and developing agentic workflows.
It’s a relatively complicated business model, combining a few different categories. Together sells inference for operating open source models, GPU clusters for training models, tools to customize open models based on proprietary data, and they offer consultations on how to perfect these outputs.
The opportunity at this historical moment couldn’t be more clear. Companies — including Palantir, very vocally, this week — are becoming more protective of their data, and seeking to develop original agents and models based on their institutional knowledge rather than sharing all these valuable insights with frontier labs. At the same time, “tokenmaxxing” is on its way out, and austerity with AI expenditures is so hot right now. Together AI is uniquely poised to help enterprises get off of Claude Code and Codex in favor of their own internal solutions.
On Wednesday, Together announced a new $800 million funding round at an $8.3 billion valuation. – Lon
A message from Squarespace
Turn your idea into a beautiful website! Go to http://www.squarespace.com/twist for a free trial. When you’re ready to launch, use offer code TWIST to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
This Week in Startups
E2306: It’s the debut of our new Summer 2026 series “TWiST All Stars.” We’re inviting back some of Jason’s favorite guests from throughout the long history of the pod, and we’re kicking things off with one of his “Besties,” investor and 8090 co-founder/CEO Chamath Palihapitiya. He’s talking about the groundbreaking development platform, which is helping enterprises save money and protect their data by building out their own internal software. Plus he shares with Jason his origin story, why he started the Learn With Me and Drink With Me communities, his advice for young people graduating college in the age of AI, and more.
E2305: Jason calls in from Hawaii for a new Friday TWiST, joined by co-host Lon and SKN Systems CEO Lyall Davenport. He’s designed a new kind of sensor tape that gathers aerodynamic data from cars in motion, at an incredible rate of 420M data points per hour. Find out how he hopes this tech can replace the old-fashioned wind tunnel simulators employed by racing companies like F1, along with future applications in defense, transportation, and beyond. Plus Jason’s thoughts on the government blocking OpenAI’s new models, why Apple’s Vision Pro chief defected, the growing data center backlash, and more.
E2304: Jason sits down with Brynn Putnam, CEO and founder of Board, to learn more about her company’s tabletop gaming console. The pair talks about how to raise capital for yet-to-launch hardware projects, the screen-time debate, and how Board is approaching building or buying IP for its family-friendly games. Next, Alex got Heremus’s AJ Piplica on the horn to chat hypersonic, autonomous jets. The startup’s technology bridges the gap between rockets and airplanes, and may represent the future of warfare, yes, but also fast freight!
TWiST Partner Offers
Agree.com: Stop chasing invoices and automate your entire contract-to-cash stack. Go to https://agree.com and tell them Jason sent you to get 50% off for life!
Northwest Registered Agent: Northwest Registered Agent. Get more when you start your business with Northwest. In 10 clicks and 10 minutes, you can form your company and walk away with a real business identity — Learn more at www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twist.
CLA: Innovation takes balance. CLA's CPAs, consultants, and wealth advisors can help you get from startup to where you want to end up. Get started now at https://www.claconnect.com/withyou.
Subscribe to Us On Your Favorite Podcast Platforms
Our Favorite Tool
If your work depends on conversations — interviews, meetings, calls — you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!
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.
