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This Week in Startups

What will be OpenAI’s IPO price? Place ya bets! | E2202

78 min episode · 2 min read

Episode

78 min

Read time

2 min

Topics

Investing, Startups, Fundraising & VC

AI-Generated Summary

Key Takeaways

  • Platform Risk Strategy: OpenAI follows the Microsoft-Facebook playbook of providing API access to developers, monitoring their token usage and success metrics, then building competing products to capture that revenue directly. Developers using over one trillion tokens like Duolingo and Indeed face highest competitive threat.
  • Cloud Computing Growth: Microsoft Azure grew 40%, Google Cloud 34%, Amazon AWS 20.2% in recent quarters, with all three companies increasing capital expenditure budgets. Google raised CapEx guidance from $85 billion to $91-93 billion for 2025, indicating sustained AI infrastructure demand without market saturation concerns.
  • AI Music Production: Suno Studio v5 offers professional-grade music creation at $30 monthly with 10,000 credits, enabling stem extraction, individual track editing, and prompt-based modifications. Users can isolate vocals, drums, guitar tracks separately and regenerate specific elements while maintaining consistent tempo and time signatures across compositions.
  • Startup Fundraising Ethics: Safe notes without expiration dates or protective provisions enable founders to keep investor capital without building products or providing returns. Investors face million-dollar legal costs to recover $150,000-250,000 investments, creating asymmetric risk that damages trust-based venture capital system and founder reputations long-term.
  • Amazon Stock Opportunity: Amazon represents strongest five-year investment opportunity among Mag Seven companies due to underperformance relative to AI potential, 10% headcount reduction during strong earnings quarter, and unrealized gains from language model development. Company needs acquisition of xAI, Claude, Mistral, or Perplexity to compete effectively.

What It Covers

Jason Calacanis warns developers against using OpenAI's API, predicting the company will study usage patterns and compete directly with successful customers. Discussion covers cloud earnings, AI music tools, prediction markets, and startup-investor trust dynamics.

Key Questions Answered

  • Platform Risk Strategy: OpenAI follows the Microsoft-Facebook playbook of providing API access to developers, monitoring their token usage and success metrics, then building competing products to capture that revenue directly. Developers using over one trillion tokens like Duolingo and Indeed face highest competitive threat.
  • Cloud Computing Growth: Microsoft Azure grew 40%, Google Cloud 34%, Amazon AWS 20.2% in recent quarters, with all three companies increasing capital expenditure budgets. Google raised CapEx guidance from $85 billion to $91-93 billion for 2025, indicating sustained AI infrastructure demand without market saturation concerns.
  • AI Music Production: Suno Studio v5 offers professional-grade music creation at $30 monthly with 10,000 credits, enabling stem extraction, individual track editing, and prompt-based modifications. Users can isolate vocals, drums, guitar tracks separately and regenerate specific elements while maintaining consistent tempo and time signatures across compositions.
  • Startup Fundraising Ethics: Safe notes without expiration dates or protective provisions enable founders to keep investor capital without building products or providing returns. Investors face million-dollar legal costs to recover $150,000-250,000 investments, creating asymmetric risk that damages trust-based venture capital system and founder reputations long-term.
  • Amazon Stock Opportunity: Amazon represents strongest five-year investment opportunity among Mag Seven companies due to underperformance relative to AI potential, 10% headcount reduction during strong earnings quarter, and unrealized gains from language model development. Company needs acquisition of xAI, Claude, Mistral, or Perplexity to compete effectively.

Notable Moment

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong spontaneously read prediction market terms during the earnings call after seeing a Polymarket bet on which words the company would say, causing dramatic price swings. He deliberately mentioned Bitcoin, Ethereum, blockchain, staking, and Web3 to influence betting outcomes in real-time.

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Episode Transcript

If I was a developer of any kind, I would never work with Sam Altman and OpenAI. Let me say that. This is a warning that people can clip this. This is a warning for anybody dumb enough to use Sam Altman's OpenAI API. They are studying you. Remember, Sam Altman's been around the block. I've known him since Loop. He's incredibly savvy person, and he wants every bit of revenue from the ecosystem. He isn't taking no prisoners. He's gonna study how you're using the API, which he has the right to do. Sam Altman comes from the Zuckerberg School of Business, which is give dumb people access to your tools, study them, and like the Borg, steal every innovation they have. And Zuckerberg got it from Bill Gates and Microsoft. Microsoft had a platform and operating system they let people build, Lotus one two three, then they did Microsoft Excel. They let people build a product called WordPerfect, and WordStar, and then they built Microsoft Word. This Week in Startups is brought to you by PaperOS. Building an empire, PaperOS offers the largest library of AI driven workflows for both founders and fund managers. Whether you're raising capital, launching a fund, or waiting through diligence, Paper OS unlocks simplicity and scale for your ever growing empire. Claim your $10,000 credit at paperos.com/twist. Northwest registered agent. Starting your business should be simple. With Northwest registered agent, you can form your entire business identity in just 10 clicks in ten minutes. From LLCs to trademarks, domains to custom websites, they've got you covered. Get more privacy, more options, and more done. Visit northwestregisteredagent.com/twist today and LinkedIn ads. Start converting your b to b audience into high quality leads today. Launch your first campaign and get $250 free when you spend at least 250. Go to linkedin.com/ this week in start ups to claim your credit. Alright, everybody. Welcome back to This Week in Startups. It's Halloween twenty twenty five. It's 10/31/2025. Here we are a month away from my birthday. I'll be the the double nickel coming up, '55. I can't drive 55. I have been using, I have been using FSD 14.1 in Mad Max mode, and we had Elon on all in. That'll be out later today. So a little surprise for folks. Elon episode dropping, and I was talking to him about it. It's nuts. Mad Max mode is when it is a bit more aggressive, let's say. They They already have to hurry mode. They have hurry mode. Now they have mad max. The mad max mode is like you gave when I used to, be in a rush in New York, taxis were cheap. You know? And I'd be like, hey. I'm late to the garden. Get me there by this time, and I'll double the meter as your tip. Yeah. You know? So it's $12. Right? I'd give you $25. And, they'd be like, absolutely. I'm looking for an excuse to drive that way. …

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Tools

  • Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong spontaneously read prediction market terms during the earnings call after seeing a Polymarket bet on which words the company would say, causing dramatic price swings.
  • by Suno

    Suno Studio v5 offers professional-grade music creation at $30 monthly with 10,000 credits, enabling stem extraction, individual track editing, and prompt-based modifications.

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