Can OpenAI Shape Our Future?
Description
From the Editor: Andrew is traveling this week so no video. In its place here is a short snippet from with , and that forms part of this week’s venture section with an article by and .
Contents
- Editorial: Can OpenAI Shape Our Future?
Essays
Universal basic credit would create a fair AI economy
The future of the web is the history of YouTube
The Vinci Code: How AI is Turning Everyone into James Bond
Bring back liberal nationalism
AI
Microsoft to Get 27% Stake of OpenAI, AI Model Access
Sam, Jakub, and Wojciech on the future of OpenAI with audience Q&A
Why AI is a double-edged sword for retailers
Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz on the State of AI
Charts of the Week: Open model of choice?
Why AI is a double-edged sword for retailers
Zoom CEO Eric Yuan says AI will shorten our workweek
It’s Not Just Rich Countries. Tech’s Trillion-Dollar Bet on AI Is Everywhere.
Silicon Valley called — the 1990s are back
Google DeepMind Developers: How Nano Banana Was Made
OpenAI Restructures as For-Profit Company
Media
Venture
a16z Raises $10BN in New Funds & Mercor Raises $350M at a $10BN Valuation
Sequoia Capital: why the next Rockefellers are building AI startups right now
And the winner of Startup Battlefield at Disrupt 2025 is: Glīd
#287: Inside RAISE Global 2025 — How Fund Models Are Evolving
Forge Global explores sale after share price plunge
Larger VC portfolios are underrated
Silicon Valley chip start-up raises $100mn to take on TSMC and ASML
Sequoia: Today we’re launching our newest set of Early Stage funds
Crypto
Startup of the Week
The AI Startup Fueling ChatGPT’s Expertise Is Now Valued at $10 Billion
Mercor quintuples valuation to $10B with $350M Series C
Post of the Week
Editorial: Can OpenAI Shape Our Future?
Two facts from this week tell the whole story.
First, Microsoft locked in a 27% stake and commercial rights to OpenAI’s frontier models through 2032, as OpenAI transformed its nonprofit entity and endowed it with a $130B value.
Second, Chinese open models—led by Qwen—overtook U.S. peers in downloads, with Airbnb’s Brian Chesky saying:
“We’re relying a lot on Alibaba’s Qwen. It’s very good. It’s also fast and cheap… we use OpenAI’s latest models, but we typically don’t use them that much in production because there are faster and cheaper models.”
Here’s the tension we need to name—and undertsand. Capitalism builds big, fast systems. Open source and the long tail democratize and discipline them. One does not replace the other. Innovation needs both.
The big private foundation models are consolidating because scale wins on timelines that matter.
Microsoft’s 27% + OpenAI’s restructuring + Sam Altman’s public clock—an AI research “intern” by 2026 and a “researcher” by 2028, backed by an ambition to add roughly one gigawatt of AI compute per week—are not vibes; they’re industrial policy by private contract.
The money is real: a16z’s new $10B, Mercor’s $10B valuation for the human‑in‑the‑loop engine behind ChatGPT, global data center buildouts from São Paulo to Saigon, and even atoms plays like TechCrunch Disrupt winner Glīd (moving steel boxes faster) and Substrate’s $100M particle‑accelerator challenge to EUV. You can dislike concentration; you can’t deny its execution speed, capital raising capability, and scale.
The open source LLM model builders are rebelling in productive ways. Qwen’s surge and DeepMind’s model show the counter‑thesis: smaller, efficient models can be “good enough,” fast, and cheap – often the right call in production.
Creators are voting with their feet (top Substack writers to Patreon; podcasters to TV), and the long tail of software is about to mirror YouTube’s history: LLMs turn “anyone with an idea” into an app publisher. This is how we keep the big companies honest. Technology empowers competitors.
The real argument is not large for-profit LLM companies vs. Open Source – it’s distribution of the vast wealth AI can be a catalyst for.
Zoom’s Eric Yuan says AI should deliver a 3 or 4‑day week. And I would add that this trends to a 3,2,1 then zero day week over the next 2-3 decades.
On the other hand the FT warns retailers that agentic commerce can disintermediate their customer relationships; Fast
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