Dario to dream big

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Anthropic CEO on AI’s future: Dario Amodei is the guest on the latest installment of the Dwarkesh Podcast with Dwarkesh Patel. The wide-ranging 2.5 hour conversation opens with what Amodei refers to as the “end of the exponential,” the period in which adding more compute and data to LLMs led to exponential improvement, all on its own. While scaling has not completely hit a wall, in Amodei’s opinion, the industry is nearing the end of the period in which upgrades simply required buying more GPUs. Other topics covered include the impact that next-gen AI tools will have on the US economy, how Anthropic plans to earn back the massive capital they’ve invested in datacenters, and how AI tools will change the face of corporate security.
AI co’s upend Silicon Valley tradition: Traditionally, in the tech industry, employees at hot startups were strongly discouraged from selling shares on secondary markets before their companies went public. The Wall Street Journal suggests that this may be about to change, as companies are staying private longer, and unicorns like Anthropic, Databricks, and Stripe are eager to find ways for their loyal, dedicated staffers — some of whom may still be leading meager, startup lifestyles — to benefit from their largesse.
Didero nabs $30 million Series A: The company — much like recent pod guest Sourcerer — uses AI tools to automate global procurement and supply chains. Co-founder Tim Spencer started the project after running an Asian e-commerce company, Markai, and noting the vast and intimidating complexity of dealing with suppliers, managing orders, negotiating prices, timing payments, and so forth. Didero’s system can comprehend and index all the various forms of communication involved in procurement — from emails and WhatsApp messages to purchase orders and packing lists — into a unified system that answers tough but important questions in plain language. They’ve raised a $30 million Series A co-led by Chemistry and Headline.

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It may soon be time to say goodbye to AI startup Cohere, with CEO Aidan Gomez announcing last fall that the company is circling an IPO that’s likely to arrive “soon.” In October, Gomez told Bloomberg that he thinks the company has potentially large appeal for retail investors as a “pure play AI investment opportunity.” While big-time public rivals like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google are investing in a variety of AI-related opportunities, Cohere offers a more direct and simplified opportunity. If you think big enterprises are going to want more and more powerful AI tools… it’s likely that Cohere will continue to grow.

The numbers so far seem to back up Gomez’s case. According to a new memo to investors, sent out this week, the company blew past its goal of hitting $200 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR), and actually got closer to $240 million. That’s quarter-over-quarter growth of more than 50% for the entire year 2025.

Cohere touts one other key advantage over more visible private rivals like OpenAI and Anthropic as well. While those companies are investing countless billions into compute and infrastructure, Cohere generates most of its revenue from software, and develops models that companies can run on managed cloud services or even their own hardware stacks. So rather than pouring money into datacenters and power stations, they can spend it on more startup-friendly pursuits like R&D and new customer acquisition.

The news this week is a bit less sunny for another T500 player: surveillance tech standouts Flock Safety. Amazon’s smart home security brand Ring exited a high-profile partnership with Flock, which would have involved sharing the company’s iconic doorbell surveillance videos with law enforcement.

Ring suggests the Flock Safety integration would have just taken more time and resources than anticipated… But the news comes less than a week after an extremely controversial Super Bowl ad for Ring’s “Search Party” feature. The ad encouraged Ring owners to use their doorball cams to help track down lost neighborhood dogs, but many viewers found the concept creepy, and feared that authorities could actually use the videos for mass surveillance programs in addition to its puppy-tracking properties.

Ring clarified that the program was never actually initiated, so no Ring videos were actually shared with Flock Safety. Just… please… remember to get your dogs chipped! – Lon

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This Week in Startups

E2249: Jason’s chatting with 2 more amazing founders making innovative new products on a special Thursday TWiST. First up, former LAUNCH staffer Presh Dineshkumar shows off Tempo, a new app from his startup The Wellness Company that monitors your health AND provides insightful, proactive, and most importantly consistent advice. THEN we’re chatting with Peter Cetale of Sourcerer, who’s using AI to simplify the sourcing and distribution process for manufacturers.

E2248: OpenClaw Mania continues on TWiST! Today, Jason welcomes former LAUNCH staffer Presh Dineshkumar, who shows off how he’s using Replicants behind-the-scenes to simplify workflows at his startup, The Wellness Company. (He’s named his bot Eywa, and she has access to his product and his emails.) PLUS we’re joined by special guests Vishnu and Sean Liu, whose OpenClaw projects are so impressive, Jason offers to invest right on the spot.

E2247: Two weeks is several YEARS in OpenClaw development time, so we brought back our first-ever guest experts Alex Finn and Matt Van Horn for a little catch-up session. Matt showed up all of his upgrades to Jason’s favorite OpenClaw skill, “Last30Days,” while Alex introduced us to his 8-bit virtual office full of individual AI agents. They each have distinct specializations, and work together and collaborate on complex tasks in a virtual workplace (complete with its own virtual water cooler). Check out how it works on a brand new TWiST.

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