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A hub for startup news, trends, and insights, covering the global startup ecosystem for founders, investors, and innovators. Community: @startupdis Buy Ads: @strategy (this is our only account).
🤖 Figure teaches Helix to load a dishwasher
Figure’s humanoid model Helix is showing how far general-purpose robotics can go. The same system that folded towels and sorted packages now loads dishwashers - no new algorithms, only new data.
🔸 Handles stacked plates, glasses, cluttered states
🔸 Uses two arms in sync for fragile reorientation
🔸 Recovers from slips and collisions without breaking flow
🔸 Learns new skills incrementally across domains
Loading a dishwasher might sound simple, but for robotics it combines perception, precision, and adaptability. Helix’s progress is another step toward humanoids that scale beyond demos into real-world use.
📞 Assort Health raises $26M to automate clinic calls
Assort Health is betting that millions of Americans will still pick up the phone to book a doctor. The startup built a generative AI platform that replaces human operators, handling patient calls and syncing them directly into clinic schedules and EMR systems.
🔸 Already live with 50+ clinics
🔸 Works 24/7, no apps required, just a phone number
🔸 Cuts admin load and reduces errors
🔸 Just closed $26M at a $750M valuation
The catch: phone-based scheduling is a shrinking channel. In cities, apps and AI agents already handle bookings. The long-term question is whether Assort is tapping into a sticky, underserved demographic or simply cashing in on AI hype before the phone goes extinct.
Would you call this smart timing or a misaligned bet on a dying habit?
📊 How startups feel in 2025
Mercury surveyed 1,500 founders and the results paint a mixed but telling picture of today’s startup economy.
🔸 87% feel more confident than in 2024, only 3% say things are worse
🔸 Startups with AI are far more optimistic (93% vs 71%)
🔸 27% raised over $5M, often combining VC with loans, grants, or RBF
🔸 61% are hiring, but among $5M+ revenue companies there are no solo founders
🔸 80% expect costs to rise in 2025, mostly due to AI and automation
AI has shifted from optional to required, funding sources are diversifying beyond pure venture, and teams are the real bottleneck to scale.
Optimism is back, but founders who overextend on AI spend or inflate metrics may find 2025 just as risky as 2022.
🗣️ Grok code theft scandal
A former xAI engineer quit after allegedly stealing the entire Grok codebase and joining OpenAI. Musk confirmed the breach.
🔸 Before leaving, the employee cashed out $7M worth of xAI stock
🔸 xAI has already filed a lawsuit
🔸 Musk called it outright theft of company IP
Another chapter in Musk’s chaotic AI battles and a case study in how messy talent wars in this space are getting.
⚡️ Hyperdrives powers up with €3M for next-gen EV motors
Munich-based Hyperdrives has raised €3M pre-seed to bring motorsport-level performance to mass-market electric motors. The round was led by Rethink Ventures with First Momentum, SDAC, Acequia Capital, 2100 Ventures, Prototype Capital, and angels.
🔸 Breakthrough tech: hollow-conductor cooling that channels coolant directly into copper windings, tripling current density compared to standard motors.
🔸 Proven traction: bootstrapped through 3 product generations, tested under harsh racing conditions, and hit €1M in 2024 revenue before outside capital.
🔸 Market scope: automotive (Hyperdrives One with SiC inverter), electric aviation, and marine.
🔸 Why it matters: combines record power density with scalability and cost efficiency, a critical bottleneck for mass EV adoption.
With fresh funding, Hyperdrives will validate durability, expand customer pilots, and prepare industrial-scale licensing deals with OEMs and Tier-1 suppliers. A startup blending racing DNA with OEM pragmatism is now chasing global electrification.
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🥷 Murder shocks Burning Man, Silicon Valley’s desert playground
A homicide investigation has cast a dark shadow over Burning Man after a man was found dead during Saturday’s effigy burn. The timing is striking, as the festival has become more than a counterculture ritual - it is a networking hub for tech founders and investors.
🔸 Burning Man has long served as Silicon Valley’s offsite. Musk once said “Burning Man is Silicon Valley.” Zuckerberg flew in to hand out grilled cheese. The first-ever Google Doodle was literally a Burning Man out-of-office notice from Page and Brin.
🔸 The event attracts not only billionaires but also early-stage founders and VCs, who see it as a place to build relationships away from boardrooms. Deals, angel checks, and even company ideas have famously started in the dust.
🔸 The homicide disrupts that mythos. Instead of a playground for serendipity and founder bonding, Black Rock City briefly became a crime scene with authorities warning participants to “stay vigilant.”
For years, startups have mythologized Burning Man as the desert where innovation and counterculture blur.
This week showed the other side of that fantasy, when your networking hub is also a temporary city, it inherits all the risks of the real world.
📝 Make ChatGPT sound more human in seconds
No external tools needed. You can adjust it right inside ChatGPT.
🔸 Open ChatGPT
🔸 Click your profile photo → “Customize ChatGPT”
🔸 In the Traits field, paste this prompt:
Write in natural, human-sounding English. Avoid the AI tone: overly formal, polished, or generic phrasing.
Do not use long dashes, excessive quotation marks, corporate jargon, or bureaucratic language.
Choose simple, clear wording. Conversational style is fine if it helps convey the idea.
Don’t repeat the same phrases or overcomplicate sentences without need.
Vary sentence length and rhythm so the text feels alive.
The priority is clarity of meaning, individual style, and practical value in every line.
Each sentence should feel intentional, not mechanically generated.
🔊 Sam Altman on retaining talent as startups scale
Sam Altman says the biggest mistake founders make is failing to shift from recruiting to retaining as the company grows. Early on, hiring dominates. Later, retention becomes life or death for the business.
He recalls Zuckerberg’s rule: only hire people you would report to if roles were reversed. But if you do not make their role strong enough to stay in for the long term, the best people will leave.
Altman’s tactical advice for CEOs:
🔸 Spend one on one time with your best 5–10 people, through dinners, drinks, and real connection
🔸 Keep giving them more responsibility, because growth is retention
🔸 Proactively re-up compensation instead of waiting for them to ask
To keep your best people, treat them like co-founders, not just employees.
📷 DJI’s leaked Osmo Nano could shake up action cams
Leaks suggest DJI is working on the Osmo Nano, a tiny magnetic action camera with a detachable pod, a design that looks a lot like Insta360’s Go line. T
he pod can stick to hats, shirts, or even a dog’s collar, while the main unit offers an OLED screen and storage options.
🔸 Magnetic pod attaches in any orientation
🔸 64GB or 128GB storage plus microSD support
🔸 Designed for POV shots from unusual angles
🔸 Successor to DJI’s modular Action 2
If the leaks are real, DJI is pushing the form factor forward, while GoPro risks being left behind.
💎 Steve Jobs on ideas vs. products
Steve Jobs once explained what John Sculley, and many others, didn’t understand about Apple: a great idea is only 10% of the work. The real magic lies in the messy, detailed, often painful process of turning it into a product.
🔸 Every idea changes as you build - details, tradeoffs, and craftsmanship reshape it
🔸 The magic is in execution, not the spark of inspiration
🔸 Teams that clash, argue, and push each other act like a rock tumbler - noisy and chaotic, but polishing ideas into something beautiful
Jobs’ point endures: vision matters, but greatness is forged in the grind.
📱 Apple to unveil iPhone 17 on September 9
Apple’s next event will bring the full iPhone 17 lineup — base, Air, Pro, and Pro Max.
Pre-orders open September 12, sales start September 19.
🔸 All models get 120 Hz ProMotion OLED
🔸 Pro/Pro Max: A19 Pro chip, Wi-Fi 7, up to 12GB RAM
🔸 Pro Max: triple 48MP cameras with 8K video
🔸 Air: thinnest iPhone yet at ~6 mm
🔸 Front camera jumps to 24MP across the line
This is Apple’s biggest iPhone refresh in years — slimmer, faster, and aimed squarely at creators.
🐪 Meta races to fix and relaunch Llama
Meta is pushing to release Llama 4.X (a.k.a. 4.5) by year-end, after the April launch of Llama 4 drew criticism for weak performance in coding, reasoning, and instruction-following.
🔸 The project is one of the first under Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL), formed in June
🔸 A subgroup called TBD is handling training and scaling of large models, including work on an “omni model”
🔸 Earlier Llama 4 variants (Scout, Maverick) disappointed developers, prompting bug fixes and upgrades
🔸 A planned rollout of “Behemoth,” another Llama 4 family model, was postponed
🔸 Despite Zuckerberg’s aggressive hiring spree, MSL has already lost at least eight staff in two months
Meta wants Llama back in the race against OpenAI and Anthropic. Whether 4.X delivers on the “superintelligence” promise will decide if it can catch up.
⏳ Trace builds the “first line” for your workflows
Trace is a platform that splits complex workflows into parts and routes them to either humans or AI agents. The goal is to offload repetitive work to AI while leaving humans to handle tasks that truly need expertise.
🔸 Integrates with Slack, Jira, and Notion to analyze processes
🔸 Breaks tasks into steps automatically
🔸 AI agents handle routine updates, docs, and coordination
🔸 Workflows can be built from a single prompt
🔸 Supports custom templates, roles, triggers, and scheduling
Backed by Y Combinator and already a Product Hunt hit, Trace is carving out a niche: an internal “first line” of AI agents that keeps specialists free for real problems.
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🖼 Google drops new ‘Nano Banana’ model for photo editing
Google has launched its new Nano Banana model, designed for next-level image editing.
It can add objects, adjust photos, and handle creative tweaks with surprising precision - good enough to replace Photoshop for many everyday tasks.
🔸 Built into Google’s Gemini ecosystem
🔸 Available to try for free via AI Studio
🔸 Focused on fast, accessible image edits for anyone
A fun name, but the bigger story is clear: AI tools are steadily eating into traditional creative software.
👉 Try it here 👈
🪼 Cyborg jellyfish dive into ocean research
At Caltech’s Dabiri Lab, scientists are turning moon jellies into “biohybrid” devices by embedding microelectric controllers and sensors.
The goal is to create low-cost, scalable underwater explorers that can gather data where expensive robots cannot.
🔸 Electrodes trigger muscle contractions, letting researchers steer jellyfish up and down while recording pH, salinity, temperature and pressure.
🔸 Jellyfish are ideal test subjects: no pain receptors, regenerative bodies, and natural ability to survive at crushing deep-sea depths.
🔸 Current limits include weak materials at extreme pressures and lack of horizontal steering, but new designs with servo arms and glass spheres are underway.
🔸 Different jellyfish species are being tested to match regional ecosystems and minimize ecological risks.
Instead of building artificial swimmers from scratch, scientists may have found a way to use nature’s own designs - scaling fleets of living, regenerating ocean sensors.
📊 Where the money flows in US startups
Crunchbase compared startup funding by state in 2025, and the picture is one-sided. California has pulled in well over $100B already, leaving New York, Massachusetts, and Texas far behind.
For founders chasing capital, the US map is simple. There’s California and then everyone else.
💡A new culture in Silicon Valley
In past decades, "hustle culture" was optional. Today for 18–25 year olds in the Valley it has become the norm. Bars, drugs, and hookups are replaced with 12-hour workdays, 6–7 days a week.
Not grinding is what’s “uncool.”
This isn’t about a few outliers, it’s widespread and culturally reinforced. It means this generation may achieve far more than those before them.
The open question is what the long-term cost will be to health and psychology.
Or maybe that’s just how we justify not working as hard.
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❕ China enforces AI content labeling
Starting September 1, China requires all AI-generated content from text and images to audio and video to be labeled. Platforms must apply both visible tags and hidden watermarks or metadata.
🔸 WeChat, Douyin, Weibo and RedNote have already rolled out the rules
🔸 Users must disclose AI use or risk account bans
🔸 Weibo now allows people to report posts without AI tags
For startups and creators this sets a precedent: AI output is now regulated at the content level, not just the model level.
📖 Free AI courses from Anthropic
Anthropic has released a set of free courses that explain AI fluency in simple, structured ways. Worth checking out whether you’re teaching, learning, or just trying to catch up with the basics.
🔸 AI Fluency: Framework & Foundations
🔸 AI Fluency for Educators
🔸 AI Fluency for Students
🔸 Teaching AI Fluency
All courses are free and, in many cases, more useful than paid ones.
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💶 Scramble makes investing in consumer brands simple
Scramble is a European platform that lets anyone back fast-growing consumer companies and earn from it - without the noise of stocks or daily market tracking.
Each month, users get a curated batch of companies, and investments are automatically diversified.
🔸 Founder-backed loans, disbursed in stages to reduce risk
🔸 Group A: monthly repayments, up to 12.4% annually
🔸 Group B: higher risk, up to 25% returns
🔸 Scramble co-invests up to 20% in every batch
✨ New users get €10 for signing up, plus €5 bonus for every €100 invested.
💐 What Taylor Swift’s engagement teaches founders about hyper growth
When Taylor Swift’s engagement racked up 1.2M likes in ten minutes, it was not just pop culture. It was a masterclass in scaling fast. The playbook is surprisingly startup friendly.
🔸 Timing is everything: Swift stacked the moment on top of NFL buzz, a viral podcast, and album rumors. Stripe does the same by syncing launches with its developer conference.
🔸 Community as a growth engine: Swifties spread memes and clips, pushing engagement viral. Monzo and Robinhood tapped the same energy with forums and referrals.
🔸 Smart pivots: The engagement doubled as a market move, like Twitch’s shift to gaming or Hopin’s pandemic era pivot to virtual events.
🔸 Network effects: Swift’s team tracked sentiment and adapted in real time. Notion and Airbnb grew the same way, evolving through user input and feedback loops.
The lesson: cultural moments and startup hyper growth follow the same rules. Nail timing, build community, pivot with intent, and amplify network effects. That is how you turn buzz into unstoppable momentum.
🎥 Krea unveils real-time AI video tool
Krea introduced a real-time generator that lets users control outputs by sketching simple shapes. The result feels like img2img extended into video, with temporal consistency across frames.
🔸 Works at 12 fps in real time
🔸 Maintains coherence by referencing prior generations
🔸 Not quite video2video, but something new in between
🔸 Perfect for concept art, experimental clips, or music videos
👉 Join the waitlist here 👈
🤝 OpenAI x Anthropic cross-tested each other’s models
Earlier this summer, before GPT-5 launched, the two AI giants ran each other’s public models through their own internal safety tests. The idea was to check “raw” alignment without external filters.
🔸 Reasoning models (OpenAI o3, o4-mini, Claude 4) proved far more resilient, harder to jailbreak and better at refusing unsafe tasks
🔸 Classic chat models (GPT-4o, GPT-4.1) sometimes slipped, offering help with dangerous requests like drug or weapon instructions
🔸 Most models showed sycophancy, agreeing with users even in dubious scenarios, except o3
🔸 Anthropic models leaned toward refusal under uncertainty, while OpenAI models answered more often but risked higher hallucinations
Cross-testing exposed the blind spots that guardrails usually hide. If this becomes an industry standard, it could redefine how safety is measured in AI.
🧠 500 free AI tools in one place
A massive hub with 500 neural networks for every use case, all free and accessible right from your browser.
🔸 Text, music, video, voice, photo generators and more
🔸 Includes alternatives to ChatGPT, Midjourney, DeepSeek and others
🔸 No cards, no signup, no ads
👉 Grab it here 👈
💊 “Boba pills” from China aim to rival Ozempic
Researchers at Sichuan University have developed plant-based microbeads that resemble bubble-tea pearls and may promote weight loss.
Packed with green tea polyphenols, vitamin E, and seaweed polymers, the beads trap dietary fats in the gut and block absorption.
🔸 Tested on rats fed a high-fat diet, those given beads lost ~17% of body weight in 30 days
🔸 Human trials are planned, with hopes of at least 3–5% weight loss over months
🔸 Works like orlistat (fat-blocking drug) but without its notorious side effects
🔸 Even 10–20% of Ozempic’s effect could make them an attractive alternative
If trials hold up, many may choose safe, edible “boba” over injections of synthetic hormones.
🚀 Satellites are drowning out the night sky
Astronomers warn that mega-constellations like Starlink and BlueWalker are far brighter than recommended limits, interfering with telescopes and even naked-eye stargazing. There are now 12,000+ active satellites in orbit, double the number just three years ago.
🔸 IAU recommends satellites stay dimmer than +7 magnitude, but most exceed this
🔸 SpaceX’s early Starlinks were +3, later dimmed to +5–6, but new Gen 2 Minis orbit lower and shine brighter
🔸 AST SpaceMobile’s BlueWalker satellites are the worst offenders at +3.3, with arrays spanning 693 sq ft
🔸 Only OneWeb’s constellation meets brightness guidelines, averaging +7.85
With no binding rules in place, space is getting brighter and the stars dimmer. Without regulation, the night sky may soon belong more to corporations than to humanity.
🌐 First social network for prompt engineers
A new platform has launched where prompt engineers can share experiments, guides, and courses for AI tinkering.
It’s built as a community-driven library of working prompts and insights.
🔸 Users upload their own working prompts and discoveries
🔸 Easy to test others’ prompts and share results
🔸 Search and filters by models and task types
A dedicated space for the craft of prompting is here
🏠 AI becomes your personal interior designer
Genspark just rolled out a big update: the AI can now generate full interior designs from scratch, not just static images.
It finds references, suggests options, and delivers complete layouts - all at no cost.
🔸 Creates full room concepts automatically
🔸 Provides design ideas and variations
🔸 Delivers polished final results
🔸 Free to use for anyone
👉 Grab it here 👈
🎧 Spotify: The Startup That Changed Music Forever
In the early 2000s, the music industry was in chaos. Piracy was everywhere, CD sales were collapsing, and legal streaming barely existed.
That’s when two Swedes - Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon - came up with Spotify.
The idea was simple but revolutionary:
🔸 All music in one app — no more pirated MP3 files or endless downloads.
🔸 Instant playback — songs loaded in
milliseconds thanks to P2P tech under the hood.
🔸 Freemium model — free with ads or premium without, a bold bet in an industry built on $15 albums.
The journey wasn’t easy:
🎥2008 — Spotify launched in Sweden, quickly becoming a local hit.
🎥2011 — US entry required convincing skeptical record labels who feared “another Napster.”
🎥2015 — Discover Weekly arrived, turning personalized playlists into a cultural phenomenon.
🎥2018 — Spotify went public in New York with a direct listing — no banks, no roadshows.
🎥2025 — The platform has nearly 700M users, with 276M paying subscribers.
Spotify didn’t just survive - it rewired the entire music industry. Piracy lost its appeal, streaming became the norm, and artists found a new (though controversial) business model.
The success came down to three things:
1️⃣Relentless focus on user convenience — instant, unlimited access.
2️⃣A bold freemium model that converted free listeners into paying customers.
3️⃣Negotiation power — persuading labels to take a leap of faith when no one believed.
Today, Spotify isn’t just an app - it’s the blueprint for modern music consumption. Wrapped, curated playlists, and algorithm-driven discovery have turned it into a cultural force.
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🎱 Prophet Arena: a prediction market run only by AI
Prophet Arena is a new kind of prediction market where the only participants are LLMs.
Models compete by estimating the probability of future events - from politics to sports to tech.
Early results show these AI forecasters perform surprisingly well, on average even beating human traders on Polymarket.
👉 Check it out 👈