Grammarly’s $1B Round, Brain Computers, and NYT Licenses To Amazon | E2133

This Week in Startups

Jason Calacanis

Technology

4.4 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 2 June 2025

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Today’s show: Jason and Alex discuss the hottest tech and startup news: Grammarly secures a massive $1B investment from General Catalyst to fuel its AI ambitions and expand into deeper enterprise offerings; a DARPA-backed brain-computer interface startup emerges as a serious Neuralink rival, signaling renewed momentum in the neurotech space; and The New York Times signs a licensing deal with Amazon, suggesting that traditional media may be starting to find common ground with large language models.

Timestamps:

(0:00) Episode Teaser(1:26) Jason's take on Singapore's regional cuisine(5:50) Why founders should get permission first and more lessons from Udio, Suno, and Spotify(10:07) Oracle - Try OCI and save up to 50% on your cloud bill at https://w⁠⁠⁠⁠ww.oracle.com/twist(15:54) The New York Times and Amazon signed a landmark AI deal: what's in it?(20:18) Squarespace - Use offer code TWIST to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain at https://www.Squarespace.com/TWIST(25:36) Why is Grammarly worth so much money?(30:14) Notion - Try it for free today at https://notion.com/twist(39:15) How does Autopilot make money?(43:03) So how long until we all have a computer in our brain?(54:43) How much does revenue predictability really matter?(59:26) Laurene Powell Jobs and Jony Ive go FULL DOOMER(1:03:35) Perplexity, Samsung, and the rest...

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Transcript

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0:00.0	They did their first insertion of their brain computer implant and then took it out again
0:04.6	with the patient that was undergoing brain surgery already to kind of prove it out.
0:08.7	But this means that there's now four companies that have done this neuralink, precision
0:13.1	neuroscience, synchron and paradomics that are all working on brain computer interfaces.
0:18.9	Is this the next self-driving project?
0:20.8	The thing that's currently in a lab,
0:22.5	but in five to ten years we're actually going to get to use
0:24.9	because I want one of these.
0:26.4	This sounds awesome.
0:27.2	I don't know when this comes to
0:30.0	civilians or soldiers or body hackers,
0:35.8	but if there's four people working on it and, you know, it can make
0:40.1	a person who's paralyzed eventually walk or, you know, a blind person see or, you know,
0:46.3	any kind of these neurological diseases. I mean, yeah, that's incredible.
0:52.1	This week in Startups is brought to you by Oracle.
0:55.6	Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, or OCI, is a single platform for your infrastructure database
0:59.9	application development in AI needs.
1:02.2	Save up to 50% on your cloud bill at Oracle.com slash twist.
1:06.1	Squarespace.
1:07.2	Turn your idea into a new website.
1:09.1	Go to squarespace.com slash Twist for a free trial.
1:12.1	When you're ready to launch, use offer code Twist to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
	...

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