Nothing But a G7 Thang

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AI leaders meet at G7 summit: A group including Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis, and several leaders of G7 countries took place on Wednesday, during the big summit in Évian-les-Bains, France. (US leaders in attendance included President Trump, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.) According to CNBC, Amodei and Hassabis called for a US-led coalition, that would produce a set of rules and standards for global AI development, while encouraging international collaboration. This could include “structured access” to frontier models, and loosened trade restrictions around chips and other critical components, along with a joint effort to stem the risks of cyberattacks, bioterrorism, and other threats. (Notably, China would not be included in this theoretical coalition.) This is, of course, all happening as Anthropic remains deep in negotiations with the US government over the public release of its Fable/Mythos 5 models, which have been blocked by the Commerce Dept. due to national security concerns. The New York Times suggests that many Anthropic employees suspect that their models are being singled out due to a grudge by the Trump administration, or in their own words, that they’re being “bullied based on bad vibes.”
Odyssey enters unicorn territory: The world model startup raised a $310 million Series B at a $1.45B valuation; Natural Capital led with Amazon, AMD’s venture arm, and others along for the ride. (The Amazon collab goes even deeper; Odyssey committed to using AWS as its preferred cloud provider, and optimizing its models for Amazon’s bespoke Trainium chips.) Unlike LLMs, world models map the physical world and attempt to understand how objects move through it. They’re essential for training and directing the self-driving cars, robots, and other hardware controlled by AI brains, but occupying physical space alongside humans. Speaking of which, Odyssey comes to us from a pair of autonomous vehicle veterans: CEO Oliver Cameron, formerly of the startup Voyage (which was acquired by General Motors), and CTO Jeff Hawke, a former engineer from UK self-driving firm Wayve.
Snap debuts long-awaited AR Specs: This marks the first take on Snap’s Spectacles line released for public consumption since 2019. Back then, they were still just sunglasses with a 3D/video camera built in. All the releases since the pandemmy have been for developers only. But co-founder Evan Spiegel showed off the new iteration on CNBC this week, designed from the ground up for an augmented reality experience. (In Spiegel’s words, the new Specs introduce “a way to use computing together in shared experiences in the real world, looking up through see-through lenses rather than at an opaque screen.” There are also multiplayer games, a video player offering a 51-degree field of view, and of course the ability to check your email. Spiegel also debuted the somewhat surprising $2,195 price tag, making these feel more akin to the insiders-only Apple Vision Pro headset than an everyday consumer device all your friends are likely to impulse buy. Though many of the internet commentariat were feeling snarky, JCal took a more optimistic view. He argues that Spiegel & Co. are likely just “one or two generations away” from finally making AR glasses that everyday people want to buy.

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We’re sad to report that Capital Factory CEO Joshua Baer — a friend of Jason’s and the pod, and a relentless supporter of “This Week in Startups” and Austin tech — lost his life this week at the age of 50. Tragically, Baer was in a business jet that crashed in South Texas, on its way back to Austin from San José del Cabo, Mexico.

Baer was a relentless and essential voice for Texas entrepreneurship, a stalwart advocate for startups and builders in the area, and one of the small circle of personalities who truly made Austin the hub for innovation and technology that it has become.

Capital Factory — founded in 2009 as a hybrid venture firm, accelerator, and co-working space — helped to fund hundreds of local companies and founders over the years, from Apptronik, to Saronic Technologies, to Mantis Space, to Persona AI and beyond.

As Will Davis, founder of The American Housing Corporation, put it, “Joshua was one of the OGs in the Austin startup scene. Basically put it on the map with Capital Factory.”

During his brief words of remembrance on today’s pod, Jason dug up this post from Josh back in 2017 that sums up his life strategy: “(1) Plant lots of seeds (2) Water everyone’s (3) Repeat.” It feels like a fitting legacy for our friend. – Lon

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This Week in Startups

E2300: Lon and Jason chat with Skyler Chan, the founder of GRU Space. You may have heard of them during their viral press run earlier this year, after announcing plans to build a hotel on the Moon. (Reserve your spot today for just $1 million!) But beyond the marketing hype, GRU has a real plan to autonomously manufacture bricks out of lunar regolith, which can then be used to build any kind of structure, including an American moon base. PLUS we’re selecting the winner of our $5K bounty for a live AI podcast fact checker. Lon demos all three finalists, then Jason selects his fave.

E2299: Two days before SpaceX launches the largest IPO in history at a flat $135/share, our VC roundtable drops a scorcher: The top 1% of seed deals might actually be underpriced. Plus: the "Sequoia scam" dual-tranche controversy, tokens-for-equity deals, and whether Claude Fable 5 is a true step function.
Tomasz Tunguz (Theory Ventures), Michael Downing (Castalia Capital), and Paige Doherty (Behind Genius Ventures) join Alex to go deep on Seed investing, startup economics, AI spend, and the impact of smarter AI on the founder journey.

E2298: Jason goes solo dolo this week, in a blockbuster episode capturing his reaction to the “Bad VC Stories” going around X, the Everything App. Jason recalls some of the high and low points of his career in venture fundraising, including an incredible story about legendary investor John Doerr going the extra mile to attend his Mahalo pitch. PLUS Jason chats with Sue Khim of Brilliant about the education company’s new AI tutor, Koji, and how actually empowering users can help the industry turn around its bad reputation.

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