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POTUS signs revised AI EO: On Tuesday, President Trump signed an AI-themed executive order after all, though it’s reportedly “scaled back” from the previous, never-finalized version. The new order — signed privately rather than in a planned-then-canceled public ceremony — requests that AI companies submit their new models for a voluntary government review at least 30 days before their public releases. (Previous versions had also been voluntary, but asked for a 90-day pre-release submission window.) Politico reports that former AI czar (and friend of the pod) David Sacks was instrumental in shutting down the first version of the order, and that some Silicon Valley insiders were still pushing for just 14 days of advance review rather than a full 30.
X debuts “React with Video” feature: In their latest attempt to keep up with the endless scroll video apps of the world, X introduced a new feature encouraging users to respond to posts with a custom video, rather than just clicking like or writing a text response. The in-app created videos closely resemble TikTok or Instagram “reactions,” with users’ selfie footage hovering over the original content as they provide their analysis and commentary. Currently, the feature is only available for iOS users, but product lead Nikita Bier suggests it’s coming to Android and the web “soon.”
Gigascale announces climate tech fund: The venture firm is led by former Meta CTO Mike Schroepfer. Their new $250 million fund backs founders who are building out the “physical economy” through the lens of climate tech. Think energy and energy grid disrupters, companies mining critical materials, and so forth. TechCrunch notes that Schroepfer is bucking a trend here, going all in on climate concerns even as the industry has shifted to a focus on building AI infrastructure and expanding our energy footprint by essentially any means possible. The thesis is that there are still ways to ramp up America’s compute through clean power technology, particularly solar, and that the sudden, drastic need for more electricity is actually an opportunity for climate tech companies, not a setback.

TWiST 500

We talk about the companies graduating the TWiST 500 through acquisition or IPO all the time. But a lot of startups that were once highlights of the collection simply fade away over time, rather than building toward a noteworthy exit. This is one of the most difficult parts of pruning and maintaining the list over time. When a company drops off of our immediate news-gathering radar, it’s very possible for them to slip through the cracks entirely.

According to some new data from Pitchbook, by way of CNBC, it’s a growing trend beyond just our own record-keeping efforts. Since the release of ChatGPT in 2022, startups that pre-dated the AI trend have been struggling, even after adding new, upgraded AI features. A number of companies that had already achieved “unicorn” status — with valuations over $1 billion — now find themselves increasingly desperate for new customers, cut off from further venture rounds, and facing skepticism that their offerings are somehow “outdated” or not “AI First.”

According to Pitchbook, there are a total of 857 current US startups that have earned unicorn-level valuations, but around half of that group haven’t raised fresh funding in the past three years, making these numbers inherently outdated. The same report estimates that 220 of these companies are now more accurately considered “fallen unicorns,” with valuations coming in well under the $1 billion level. These include brands like Glossier, Brooklinen, SeatGeek, and Rihanna’s Savage X Fenty clothier.

Pitchbook’s #1 “fallen unicorn” victim — which has dropped the most in value since the dawn of the ChatGPT era — is a telling example: scheduling startup Calendly. While we at TWiST continue to use the product and find it helpful, there are dozens of “AI assistant” apps that can now theoretically take over Calendly’s core function of scheduling a meeting across multiple platforms. And if you’re handy with OpenClaw, your agent can take care of this for you right from Slack.

We do our best to keep an eye on the TWiST 500 list and prune any outdated companies that are no longer worthy of Top 500 Private Company status. But if you see any entries on the list that you think should rightly give up their spot, as always, send us an email and let us know. – Lon

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This Week in Startups

E2295: On a two-part TWiST, Alex chats with Cortical Labs founder Dr. Hon Weng Chong about how they’re using human neurons alongside silicon hardware to create “Synthetic Biological Intelligence.” Find out why neurons are more efficient than GPUs at reinforcement learning, and delve into some of the technological and ethical implications of this groundbreaking work. THEN, we welcome Pyka co-founder/CEO Michael Norcia to explore the various uses for his startups’ autonomous aircraft, and why he’s developing the tech all the way down in Brazil.

E2294: It’s an all Ask Jason TWiST special, in which JCal responds to the best user queries submitted in our new X super-fan group chats. (Want to join? Follow us on X and let us know why you belong in there in the DMs.) Discussions include how you should approach your seed round funnel, why investors are more open to hardware concepts than ever before, how to differentiate your startup when you’re competing with frontier labs, and the possibilities for “Founder Community College.” PLUS highlights from Lon’s extended trip to Italy and Greece!

E2293: The "Ryanair of drone delivery" just raised $50 million and plans to bring its technology from Europe to the United States. Manna founder Bobby Healy explains to TWiST how his Dublin-based company completed 300,000 deliveries while some rivals are still publishing blog posts, and why low-cost airline economics will decide who wins the autonomous skies. Sticking to the drone theme, TWiST welcomed Theseus co-founder Ian Laffey, who called in from Kyiv to tell us about his company’s drone guidance system. It runs off a simple camera and Google Maps. The technology could rewrite the modern, GPS-jammed battlefield, and bring more firepower to smaller nations fending off larger foes.

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