Microsoft's massive OpenAI haul

Top News

• The Cerebras IPO scales: Chip startup Cerebras raised its IPO price range from $115 to $125 to $150 to $160, one of the largest price increases we can recall from a public-market debut. The resulting Cerebras revenue multiple is steep, but if you consider its new partners and implied revenue ramp, the enthusiasm makes more sense. File this one under the 'Compute Crunch’ tag.

• Here’s how to make money from AI: The Musk-OpenAI trial continues, with Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella taking the stand, and other company leaders weighing in by video. One, Michael Wetter, said that Microsoft has “recognized approximately $9.5 billion in revenue to date through its partnership with OpenAI.” See? You can profit from AI in 2026.

• AI regulation is up in the air: With an AI-focused executive order in the offing, Washington is tying itself in knots trying to decide which way to go with artificial intelligence regulation in the United States. The Post reports that the Commerce Department and the Office of the National Cyber Director are arguing over whether voluntary or mandatory checks of new AI models before release are the future. Some tech folks want no regulation. Some want some. Few want a lot.

TWiST 500

TWiST500 giant OpenAI’s plan to yoke private cash and private equity portfolios together with its AI models as their source of propulsion is a go. The widely reported effort will sport the incredibly concise title “OpenAI Deployment Company,” which must have cost upwards of $5 to come up with. Or less.

What matters is that the $4 billion venture will be majority-owned and managed by OpenAI. That means the spoils from the enterprise push will flow (mostly) to the AI lab rather than to the investors in the new project.

Recall that Anthropic is pursuing a similar effort; AI has improved to the point where it can do real work, but getting companies ready to automate workflows is no small feat. Enter the OpenAI Deployment Company’s forward-deployed engineers, who are (theoretically) aces at just that work.

Jason is not wildly impressed. On today’s show, he said the model is too complicated for its own good, and that it's perhaps another indicator that OpenAI is not sufficiently focused. After all, why put this effort in a separate bucket while AI hardware stays inside the parent company’s arms?

Regardless of what we think, major AI labs are hellbent on getting their tools embedded into the world’s enterprises. Those revenues tend to be sticky, after all. Just ask the SaaS kids how durable! — Alex

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This Week in Startups

E2286: Banks don’t want to hand over their data to AI labs. So David Moscatelli built a $250,000 box that runs AI on-prem. He already has 1,600 pre-orders. On today’s episode of TWiST, Jason and Alex sit down with the Go Abacus founder and Yanez's Jose Caldera to unpack how regulated industries are getting AI without the cloud, why Bittensor subnet 54 is incentivizing miners to attack identity systems, and why Cloudflare just laid off 20% of its workforce in the same week it raised guidance. The show closes with Jason explaining what it means to build an AI-first startup, and how workers can derisk their future employment!

E2285: Aleph's Michael Eisenberg argues we may be witnessing the end of a 60-year run for venture capital as a craft business. Maniv's Mike Granoff and Oxcart's Larry Covert push back, arguing it's merely splitting into two asset classes: "Consensus VC" and traditional VC. Either way, the implications for founders, LPs, and the next decade of innovation are enormous. Tune in for the IPO drought, "bullshit ARR" in the AI era, AI gross margins, the U.S.-China chip war, the Iran conflict's impact on defense tech, the death of NATO and the rise of allied supply chains, why Tel Aviv's stock exchange could become the next NASDAQ, and more.

E2284: Have you wanted to invest in venture capital alongside your 401k contributions, but struggled to find a way to place a bet? Search no more: The AngelList team has created USVC, a new fund that will accept investments from folks who lack accreditation. USVC’s Ankur Napgal swung by to chat about investment strategies, access, fees, and just how illiquid the venture-like vehicle will prove to be. Jason and Alex were next joined by Jon Durbin, core contributor at Chutes, and Yash Goenka, co-founder and CEO of Humwork. Chutes is the most valuable Bittensor subnet, focused on aggregating GPUs to offer trustless AI compute. Humwork wants to help bring a human into your agentic workflow to unstick your agent when it runs into a hitch.

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