Top News | Travis Kalanick introduces Atoms: The iconic Uber vet (and friend of the pod) is transforming his ghost kitchen company CloudKitchens into a robotics startup named Atoms. The goal? To create “gainfully employed robots” for work in the food, mining, and transportation sectors. Kalanick made the announcement on the TBPN internet chat show on Friday… no comment… and said that Atoms has essentially been operating in stealth with thousands of employees for the past eight years. He connects the new firm directly back to his work with Uber, calling the digitalization of the physical world “my life’s work.” Uber gets Motional: Speaking of Uber, they will introduce cars from the robotaxi service Motional to their rideshare app, exclusively in Las Vegas. At no extra charge, riders who opted for an Uber X, Uber Electric or Uber Comfort ride may get matched with a Motional Ioniq 5 autonomous vehicle. For any readers still a bit squeamish about getting into a car with no one behind the wheel (it’s fine!), safety drivers will be present to keep an eye on things at first, though Uber and Motional plan to phase them out by the end of 2026. Regardless, the entire system is opt-out, so anyone who refuses to ride in a driver-free vehicle can ask to please have a human present. Motional was founded in 2020 as a joint venture between auto supplier Aptiv and auto maker Hyundai; they signed a 10-year partnership agreement with Uber back in 2022. Anthropic says a million tokens is cool: Anthropic subscribers will now get a context window of 1 million tokens when using the Opus 4.6 and Sonnet 4.6 models, at no additional charge. (Previously, the Claude makers offered context windows above 200,000 tokens along with a surcharge of up to 100%.) Larger context windows don’t necessarily make models “smarter,” but they allow for richer understanding of inputs, better long-range reasoning, and more conversational memory within the same session.
| TWiST 500 | News broke earlier this week that two senior Cursor executives — Andrew Milich and Jason Ginsberg — were exiting the vibecoding giant and jumping over to Elon Musk’s outfit, xAI. Now we have some more insight into the reasoning behind these hires. Musk posted to X (the platform formerly known as Twitter that’s owned by xAI) on Thursday that the company “was not built right first time around,” adding that it needed to be reconstructed “from the foundations up.” He also notes that the “same thing happened with Tesla.” | Musk, of course, announced plans to merge SpaceX and xAI into the world’s most valuable private company just last month. So clearly the Grok maker has to continue growing with his ever-expanding vision. | In other T500 news, Amazon Web Services will use both its own Tranium processors alongside Cerebras Systems’ oversized Wafer Scale Engine (WSE) chips, as part of a new offering arriving in the second half of this year. That makes Amazon the first of the hyperscalers to commit to using Cerebras’ powerful, experimental chips for inference computing. | It’s been a BIG week for Cerebras. They were also name-dropped by Oracle CEO Clay Magouyrk as a notable AI hardware concern on an earnings call on Tuesday. As the company is planning an IPO with Morgan Stanley, the headlines couldn’t have come at a more opportune time. – Lon | A message from LinkedIn Jobs | Hire right, the first time. Post your first job and get $100 off towards your job post at LinkedIn.com/twist. | This Week in Startups | E2261: Alex welcomes a Wednesday panel of self-driving experts: Ben Seidl of Autolane, Ming Maa of Moove AV, and Nathan Parker of Edge Case Research. Together they delve into Uber’s new collaboration with Zoox in Vegas, the specific challenges of bringing autonomous vehicles to new cities and environments, how self-driving vehicles interact with one another on the road, and what’s still holding back the expansion of robotaxis in the US. | E2260: Andrej Karpahty’s Autoresearcher is blowing Jason’s mind. But… how exactly does it work? The OpenAI vet has protocol for his AI agent to recursively improve an LLMs performance one tiny step at a time, through a constantly evolving series of 5-minute experiments. Dig into how this works, and what it could mean for the future of AI agents, on TWiST. PLUS we’ve got 3 more demos from NetXD’s Suresh Ramamurthi, Rohan Arun of PhoneClaw, and Eugene Stuckless of Eir. | E2259: What is $TAO? We’re so glad you asked! On a TWiST special edition, we’re diving into the world of Bittensor and subnets. It’s a blockchain-based network divided into “subnets,” each of which power a different AI project, app, or tool. Find out how it all works — and how you can buy TAO and other subnet tokens, to own a small piece of the AI revolution — with special guests Mark Jeffrey (of Stillcore Capital) and Ala Shaabana (of Crucible Labs). | TWiST Partner Offers | Wispr Flow: Stop typing. Dictate with Wispr Flow and send clean, final-draft writing in seconds. Visit wisprflow.ai/twist to get started for free today. 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 Caldera + Lab: Whether you’re starting fresh or upgrading your routine, Caldera Lab makes skincare simple and effective. Head to CalderaLab.com/TWIST and use TWIST at checkout for 20% off your first order.
| 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. |
|
