He's got the whole Globalstar in his hands

Top News

• Amazon buys Globalstar: The cloud and ecommerce (and just about everything else) giant picked up the global communications company for $10.8 billion, in a combination of stock and cash. The goal is a Starlink-esque project to build out a satellite network in orbit, then use it as a foundation to launch consumer internet and connectivity services. You should be able to sign up for Amazon-branded voice, data, and messaging by 2028. The company also announced a preliminary deal with Apple, which was already working with Globalstar, allowing Amazon satellites to connect to Apple devices — like iPhones and Apple Watches — for emergency texting. Amazon has been very public about plans to add satellite-powered internet services. Last year, the company launched its first array of 27 satellites into orbit as part of Project Leo (née Kuiper).

• Glydways raising $250M in fresh capital: At least, according to Bloomberg. That’s on top of a $170 million Series C round it announced just this AM. They automated vehicle startup is seeking a valuation of over $1 billion. They have a unique take on urban transportation. Rather than working on automated cars designed to traverse our current roads, they’re developing a closed-loop system in which automated pod-like vehicles move passengers around on dedicated two meter-wide “expressways.” That’s certainly an expansive vision, but founder and CEO Mark Seeger insists that it’s already on its way to becoming a reality. He tells Bloomberg the startup is ready to move “from skepticism to deployment,” and notes that construction projects are already underway in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, with a pilot program near Atlanta’s busy Hartsfield-Jackson Airport breaking ground earlier this year. Investors include Khosla Ventures, several Japanese auto concerns, and OpenAI founder Sam Altman.

• OpenAI acquires fintech startup Hiro: Speaking of OpenAI, they’re on something of an acquisition run of late. The latest pick-up: personal finance company Hiro Finance. (As Hiro was on its way to shutting down, and a number of Hiro staffers — including founder Ethan Bloch — are moving over to OpenAI, TechCrunch is technically labeling this an acqui-hire.) Hiro was formed in 2024, and launched its first product — a consumer-facing AI-powered financial planning app — in late 2025. Users give the platform a general feel for their financial situations — submitting their salary, debts, monthly budget, and so on — and the app helps them make financial planning decisions and explore “What If” scenarios. TechCrunch notes that OpenAI previously purchased other financial products, and theorizes that the company will expand ChatGPT into being a go-to application for “business finance teams.”

TWiST 500

T500 mainstays Handshake launched as a sort of “LinkedIn for college students,” a career network geared specifically toward currently students and recent grads seeking internships and first jobs. On Tuesday, The Information reported that the company has now hit a staggering $1 billion in gross annualized revenue, a major jump from the $550 million rate they reported just in January.

The secret sauce has been the growth of Handshake AI, the company’s data labeling and reinforcement learning division which launched in early 2025. As it turns out, providing a place for college grads to find internships was a solid business, but it was also a way to identify and gather information on a massive and valuable collection of very employable experts. The company now controls a verified network of 500,000 PhDs, 3 million graduate students, and 20 million college students from over 1,600 universities.

This network of professionals is ideally suited for a crucial link in the 2026 AI infrastructure chain: post-training. Companies like Scale and Mercor hire a wide range of individuals to help train and fine-tune frontier AI models, but most of these folks are generalists. When you’re training specialized AI models to solve niche, highly complex problems, you don’t just need random humans in the loop. You need verified experts, like, say, PhDs and graduate students.

This is where Handshake’s pre-vetted network has proved intensely useful to companies like OpenAI and Anthropic, not to mention extraordinarily valuable for the company that owns the CRM. Handshake also acquired Cleanlab AI earlier this year (in a competitive situation), which is helping them improve data quality and automate noise reduction within their system. – Lon

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This Week in Startups

E2275: Stillcore Capital partner Mark Jeffrey joins the show once more to pick through the Templar/Covenant-72B scandal and look ahead at how the Bittensor community can prevent future (alleged!) rug pulls. They’re joined by subnet owners Ken Miyachi (of BitMind) and Will Squires & Steffan Cruz (of MacroCosmos) for a full rundown on the specific powers wielded by subnet owners, how investors should divvy up their TAO vs. Alpha Token purchases, and much much more.

E2274: It’s the (alleged) rug pull threatening to tear the Bittensor community apart! Jason and Alex are discussing the highly-visible Templar subnet, which had trained the massive Convenant-72B AI model using an innovative, decentralized approach. But when CEO Sam Dare (allegedly!) sold off $10 million of subnet tokens, he threatened the project’s future, and caused the largest single-day drop in the price of TAO ever. What really happened? Who’s in the wrong? And how can the Bittensor ecosystem prevent this from happening again? We’re digging in on a new TWiST.

E2273: Anthropic’s Mythos is so dangerous… you’re NOT ALLOWED to use it! Jason and Alex explore the potential for Project Glasswing, and whether this modern-day Manhattan Project can keep us safe from the cyberthreats to come, along with guest AI expert and Neurometric CEO Rob May. Plus we’re checking out Death By Clawd — the website that tells you how long your startup has to live before it’s Claude-shotted — along with creator, Gyani aka “The G-Man.”

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LAUNCH Accelerator 36!

Our 36th LAUNCH Accelerator cohort has kicked off. If you’re an early stage investor and want to take a look at this cohort first-hand during an exclusive pitch session, please email [email protected]!

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