📺 Top Talks from Y Combinator’s AI Startup School

In June, Y Combinator hosted a 2-day AI bootcamp for over 2,500 students and PhDs. They brought in top voices from OpenAI, Tesla, Microsoft, and more.

Here’s a handpicked list of the most valuable talks:

🔹Andrew Ng, co-founder of Google Brain
Topic: Building Faster with AI

🔹 Andrej Karpathy, former Head of AI at Tesla & OpenAI co-founder
Topic: Software Is Changing (Again)

🔹 Elon Musk, founder of Tesla, SpaceX, xAI
Topic: Digital Superintelligence, Multiplanetary Life, How to Be Useful

🔹 Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI
Topic: The Future of OpenAI, ChatGPT’s Origins, and Building AI Hardware

🔹 Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft
Topic: Microsoft’s AI Bets, Hyperscaling, Quantum Computing Breakthroughs

🔹 Fei-Fei Li, “Godmother of AI”
Topic: Spatial Intelligence is the Next Frontier in AI

🔹 François Chollet, creator of Keras & ARC Prize
Topic: How We Get to AGI

Coming soon: sessions from the founders of Perplexity, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind’s John Jumper.

📌 Save this post — it’s packed with signal.

⚡️ Meta takes 49% stake in Scale AI — the dataset factory behind Big Tech models

Founded in 2016, Scale AI builds the infrastructure that trains the trainers — cleaning, labeling, and structuring data for top AI systems.

It’s now 49% owned by Meta, which paid $14.3B and brought CEO Alexandr Wang into its elite AI group.

🖱️240,000+ contractors handle massive multi-modal data
🖱️Text, audio, 3D, and synthetic data for RLHF at scale
🖱️Quality via majority vote, dynamic calibration, and more
🖱️Upload raw — get back validated datasets via full-cycle API
🖱️Rapid-feedback pipelines using private foundation models

But trust issues surfaced fast: leaked docs revealed prompt sets, tasker emails, and internal client data — including Bard and xAI. Meta’s rivals (OpenAI, Google) are now freezing projects.

The big question: can Meta own the pipeline and still convince competitors to keep sending blood to its lab?

📊 25 AI startups on the rise

Not every AI breakthrough comes from Big Tech. This Forbes-backed list highlights startups quietly building the infrastructure, creativity, and productivity layers of the AI economy.

💰The biggest funding magnet? Productivity tools — with $700M+ across just 8 companies

🧠 From LangChain to Perplexity, Harvey to Cleanlab — each is solving a different bottleneck in the AI stack

✍️ Midjourney made the list without raising a dollar

🔒 But not everyone will survive — policy, trust, and data security are already major battlefields

The AI race isn’t just about model size — it’s about who trains faster, ships smarter, and earns trust first.

🔥 Base44: The profitable AI startup built solo and sold for $80M

Base44 is an AI-powered app builder that turns plain-text prompts into fully functional web apps.

It was created and scaled by a solo founder — and recently acquired by Wix for $80M.

🔍What makes it stand out

🖱️Built and scaled by one person — no devs, no team
🖱️Reached 400K users without VC funding
🖱️Routes prompts across Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini to maximize output
🖱️Daily product updates, viral loop built-in via social sharing
🖱️Grew via LinkedIn and direct feedback loops with early users
🖱️Generated profit early and kept full control before exit

📈 The exit and after
Wix paid $80M, with $25M set aside to retain the team post-acquisition. Base44 is now part of Wix Studio, continuing to operate independently.

Maor Shlomo may not have built the first solo unicorn — but he might’ve shown us exactly how it starts.

📞China is developing cyborg bees for surveillance

Chinese researchers are working on remote-controlled bees — real insects fitted with microchips that allow human operators to direct their movement.

The chip weighs just 74 milligrams and is light enough for a bee to carry in flight.

Use cases? State surveillance.
Authorities plan to deploy the cyborg bees for monitoring, eavesdropping, and intelligence gathering.

Nature meets control tech.

⚡️ Google killer? Comet browser by Perplexity and NVIDIA goes live

Google’s in trouble: NVIDIA and Perplexity launched Comet, the first AI-native browser — and early testers say it’s a game-changer.

🔺Comet Assistant works on any site: summaries, search help, problem-solving
🔺Perplexity is baked in — smarter, faster, and cleaner than Google
🔺Built-in AI agents book hotels, write emails, pay bills
🔺Manages tabs, bookmarks, and removes clutter by itself
🔺Comes preloaded with ad blockers and pop-up killers

Access is now open

🌐 Japan breaks 1 petabit/second fiber speed record

Japanese engineers just pushed the limits of data transmission: over 1 petabit per second across 1,800 km of fiber — using cables compatible with today’s internet infrastructure.

🔸That’s 10¹⁵ bits/sec — a quadrillion
🔸Enough to stream the entire Netflix library in one second (allegedly)
🔸Achieved using a custom multi-core optical fiber
🔸Compatible with existing transmission systems
🔸Reinforces that internet infra can handle surging global demand

You learned "kilo" from kilometers.
Now meet "peta" — the new speed benchmark for the digital era.

📉 Small businesses risk falling behind in the AI revolution

New research shows that SMEs are falling far behind in AI adoption — and it could cost them productivity, talent, and growth.

🔸54% of small businesses use AI less than once a month
🔸38% say they’ve never used it
🔸 Only 24% feel their company invests meaningfully in AI
🔸Millennials are adopting 2–3x faster than Gen X or Boomers
🔸 Those who do use AI report better output, less stress, and even shorter workweeks

Big companies are already building automation pipelines.
SMEs that don’t catch up soon could lose their edge entirely.

❔ A riddle for startup founders

Two companies. Same industry, similar product. Very different paths.

Company A:
Solo founder
🔸$10K MRR
🔸$500 on servers
🔸Max $2K on marketing
🔸~$7.5K monthly profit

Company B:
🗄2 founders + 1 investor
🗄$100K MRR
🗄$80K in monthly costs (infra + marketing + salaries)
🗄~$20K monthly profit

Now the question:

Who’s doing better?
Or more importantly — which setup would you choose?

Explain your thinking in the comments 👇
(Hint: it’s not as obvious as it looks.)

🔘 Ultimate browser extension for prompt hoarders — SuperPrompt

SuperPrompt is the perfect tool for anyone who works with AI prompts regularly. It lets you save, organize, and instantly access all your favorite prompts — right from a sidebar.

No more digging through notes or docs.
Just drop your prompt into the database and it’s there when you need it.

🛠 Try it here

🧠 What it’s like to work at OpenAI — insights from a Codex engineer

Calvin French-Owen, ex-startup founder and one of the engineers behind Codex, spent a year at OpenAI before leaving.

He recently published a long reflection — here are the standout takeaways:

🔸 No one uses email internally — all comms go through Slack
🔸 Headcount grew from 1,000 to 3,000 in a year — processes constantly break
🔸 No strict product roadmap — priorities shift fast, sometimes no quarterly plan at all
🔸 Lots of bottom-up initiatives — small, semi-independent teams start research on their own
🔸 Flexible team structure — people can be moved between projects instantly if needed
🔸 High secrecy — Slack channels with access levels, can’t tell others what you work on
🔸 Many ex-Meta folks joined — not necessarily poached, just moved
🔸 Twitter is monitored constantly — post an idea and it might get picked up
🔸 No swag stockpile — merch drops are rare; first one crashed the Shopify store
🔸 Codex sprint was brutal — slept 5–6 hours, compared it to Y Combinator intensity
🔸 From first line of code to Codex launch: 7 weeks — says he’s never seen anything like it

OpenAI moves fast, breaks things, and keeps secrets. Not for everyone — but a dream for builders who like chaos.

💘Grok introduces AI waifus — and xAI is hiring to build more

The first AI companions just launched in Grok — and now xAI wants to hire someone to make even more, starting with obedient anime girlfriends.

🔸The app now features two AI personas: a gothic anime girl named Ani and a snarky red panda called Rudy
🔸 Users can customize their personalities — including romantic and flirty modes
🔸 No paid subscription is required, just update the app
🔸 xAI posted a new role: “Fullstack Engineer — Waifus”
🔸 The job involves building AI waifus users can date, flirt with, or just hang out with
🔸 Salary range: $180K–$440K/year (plus bonuses), remote possible for US candidates

It started as a joke — but Grok’s waifus are now real, live, and flirting.
xAI isn’t just building chatbots.
It’s building characters.

❓ How to get blocked by a journalist: harmful tips for PR people

Dozens of pitches land in the inboxes of editors and reporters every day.

Only a few ever get a reply — either because they’re brilliant (rare) or disastrously bad (less rare).

Here’s a real-life example that set a new low. Want the same result? Follow these steps:

1️⃣Misspell the name of the publication — then double down by asking if the journalist still works there (despite being the editor-in-chief).

2️⃣Send your message word-by-word in separate texts. Offer five completely irrelevant experts without checking what the media actually writes about.

3️⃣Drop full bios, photos, and links for each speaker directly into Telegram.

4️⃣Add several large PDFs with no explanation of what’s inside.

5️⃣Wrap it all up by asking: “Do you need any comments? Or maybe a column?” No topic, no angle, no clarity.

If that pitch gets ignored or blocked, it’s not about arrogance — it’s a defense mechanism.

A clear, relevant request shows respect.
Everything else is just noise.

🔗 Isomorphic Labs — AI-first pharma for real disease cures

56 million people die from illness every year. Isomorphic Labs, a DeepMind spinout backed by Alphabet, is building a drug discovery platform where nearly everything is simulated with AI — and they're now entering human trials.

🔸 AlphaFold 3 models proteins, RNA, DNA, small molecules
🔸 Simulations replace most wet-lab experiments
🔸 Built-from-scratch AI-native pharma company
🔸 Drastically cuts drug development cost and time
🔸 Makes biotech accessible for small teams
🔸 Partnering with big pharma and developing in-house drugs

$600M raised in March. Alphabet backing. Real mission.
This could be the start of the immortality curve Kurzweil talked about.

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🐥 Chickens-as-a-Service: the rise of subscription farming

From skyrocketing egg prices to eco-hype and backyard aesthetics — chickens are having a moment.

Rent the Chicken lets anyone try the farming life without commitment. For 4–6 months, you get mobile coops, laying hens, and fresh eggs — then return or adopt.

🔸 Partner network of 45 farmers across the US and Canada
🔸 Ready-to-go coops, no construction needed
🔸 Seasonal rentals with buyout option
🔸 Produces 8–14 eggs per week per package
🔸 $17.6M revenue (last public figure), growing ~20% yearly
🔸 48% sales spike during the pandemic

It’s a demo mode for aspiring homesteaders — and a gentle fix to pet abandonment.

What’s next? Rabbits, goats, micro-pigs?
Would you rent your first herd?

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🗯Build a perfect resume in minutes with Kuse

Kuse is a new AI tool that turns your text, file, or project link into a polished, recruiter-ready portfolio — no design skills needed.

🔸 Upload anything — get a clean, structured resume instantly
🔸 Looks like it was made by a pro designer
🔸 Supports charts, screenshots, and visual case studies
🔸 Export as PDF or live website — ready to send in replies

Try it here

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🪙Send Bitcoin without internet — Jack Dorsey makes it real

Bitchat is a new peer-to-peer chat app that works entirely without internet or mobile signal.

🔸 Uses Bluetooth mesh to relay encrypted messages
🔸 No SIM card, no Wi-Fi, no servers, no login
🔸 Messages are ephemeral and fully private
🔸 Built for protests, outages, or remote areas
🔸 Currently in beta on iOS — Android coming soon

This isn’t a concept.
You can now send Bitcoin without internet.

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