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Digg is back! The iconic news aggregator — formerly a legit Reddit rival before being scrapped for parts and sold off in 2012 — was re-acquired by creator Kevin Rose (along with Reddit’s own Alexis Ohanian) last year. Now it seems the old/new owner is ready to re-launch; the site’s open public beta is now online. Digg got a new look and some upgrades, but the refresh is not a complete overhaul. It’s still functionally the same concept, and still similar to Reddit, collecting headlines and posts divided into sub-communities based on interest. According to TechCrunch, Rose and Ohanian are counting on AI to give the platform a boost, helping them weed through garbage content and bots while promoting real humans posting interesting stuff.
Airbnb lures away Meta AI chief: Ahmad Al-Dahle — who formerly ran the generative AI division for Meta Platforms — jumped over to the temporary stay marketplace as its new CTO. It’s part of a larger effort by Airbnb to move away from just helping people find places to crash in a new city, into providing a host of local services and connections. CEO Brian Chesky said the company wants to become a “travel concierge” that can help you find great destinations and experiences throughout your trip. The hope is that AI can learn from your behavior, along with the folks around you, transforming the app from a hotel substitute into a full-on guide.
Novee emerges from stealth: The Israeli cybersecurity firm uses “AI-driven penetration testing” to keep websites and apps secure from attackers armed with their own AI tools. They argue this is superior than traditional penetration testing, which works on a fixed schedule. If hackers and their AI can figure out the timing, they can quickly push through an exploit unseen. Novee’s AI operates continuously, to fend off these kinds of assaults. They’ve emerged from stealth with $51.5 million in funds, in a round led by YL Ventures.

TWiST 500

Yesterday, we talked about Cerebras, the wafer-thin chipmaker that just picked up an extra $1 billion in funding. Well, they’re BACK in the news today, as AI companies so often are. OpenAI struck a new deal with Cerebras to buy chips that will power its signature ChatGPT offering, along with 750 megawatts of computing power over the next three years.

The deal is valued at “more than $10 billion,” according to the Wall Street Journal (though bear in mind that many of these mega-mega-AI deals are based around theoretical commitments rather than cash on the barrel). Also bear in mind that OpenAI chief Sam Altman is also a personal investor in Cerebras. The companies have been exploring a potential collaboration since 2017.

In other T500 news (is there any other kind?), China’s Z.AI released GLM-Image, its first-ever image generation model trained entirely on Huawei chips, with no additional support from US chipmakers. The timing makes sense, of course, as the Chinese government is increasingly cracking down on Nvidia H200 imports, while the US government hopes to forestall Nvidia exports. With the exchange of powerful AI chips becoming more and more of a geopolitical uncertainty, Chinese AI firms will need reliable, domestic sources for their silicon.

Finally, the New York Times suggests that we’ll drop a number of our favorite private companies from the TWiST 500 line-up this year, as 2026 is poised to become “the year of the Mega IPO.” They’re guessing retail investors might soon be able to get their hands on shares of high flyers like SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic. Robinhood founder (and friend of the pod) Vlad Tenev suggested recently that opening up AI investments to the public will provide a much-needed shot in the arm to the industry, and align the American public behind this innovative new technology rather than fearing it. We could have a chance to test his theory in the near future. – Lon

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This Week in Startups

E2235: Jason loves Japan’s Uniqlo brand, so the opportunity to speak with board member Kathy Matsui (also one of the country’s top VCs) was too good to pass up. Once they’re done checking out JCal’s latest style, the conversation turns to Japan’s startup revolution, why the country’s economic recovery seemed to take so long, and why her firm MPower Partners is seeking companies reflecting “Japan Dynamism” for their second fund.

E2234: In a special Tuesday ep, Jason chats with Alex Shieh of The Antifraud Company. Did you know that, under the US government’s False Claims Act, Americans who uncover fraud get to keep up to 30% of the recovered funds? It’s such a good deal, Shieh turned it into a business model for his startup. PLUS on the latest TWiST Flashback, we take a look back at a classic 2016 interview with Boom founder Blake Scholl.

E2233: In our first-ever TWiST episode from Tokyo, Jason chats with Hyre founder and ex-recruiter Sho Takei. He’s taking what he learned hiring international teams for companies like Uber and CloudKitchens, and using it to help other companies not just bring in top employees, but build out effective teams. Hear about his experiences working for “super-pumped” friend of the pod Travis Kalanick, his thoughts on establishing your company culture, and much more.

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