From dry cleaner to $8.2B - Oct 5

97% That is the chance Polymarket traders gave, when I checked, that Anthropic goes public before OpenAI. The same market gives 85% that Anthropic lists by December 31. It also gives 96% that OpenAI does not list in 2026. Benzinga reports OpenAI has ruled out a 2026 IPO and Anthropic is aiming for November. Sources: https://polymarket.com/predictions/ipo and https://www.benzinga.com/markets/ipos/26/10/62152426/openai-anthropic-are-bypassing-wall-streets-ipo-freeze-a-luxury-only-the-top-two-or-three-players-have

Fei-Fei Li worked at her family's dry cleaner every weekend, Friday to Sunday, all through college. She was 15 when she landed in New Jersey in 1992 with her mother and almost no English. A math teacher named Bob Sabella tutored her at lunch. She got a Princeton scholarship. In 2007 she started ImageNet, a giant library of labeled photos to teach computers to see. People in her field thought building datasets was boring work. In 2012 a team used deep neural networks and won the ImageNet contest. That win helped set off modern AI. On Monday, September 28, AMD said it will buy her company World Labs for $8.2B. She joins AMD as chief scientist. Read the full journey. Then ask yourself which boring job you are doing that nobody respects yet. Link: https://calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/rkr8rma5mg Deal source: https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/28/amd-will-acquire-fei-fei-lis-world-labs-for-8-2-billion/

Armadin raises $255.5M, Series B. Kevin Mandia sold Mandiant to Google for $5.4B in 2022. Now he is back with AI agents that attack your systems first so you can fix the holes. Backers include Andreessen Horowitz and Accel, at a valuation above $2.5B. Serial founders get funded fast. https://techstartups.com/2026/10/01/startup-funding-news-today-october-1-2026-armadin-foundational-frank-1club-osavul-more/ Neko Health opens in SoHo. The body-scan startup from Spotify's Daniel Ek and Hjalmar Nilsonne opened at 300 Lafayette Street on September 24. A scan costs $499 and takes an hour. It reports 100,000+ scans in the UK and Sweden, and 25,000+ people on the NYC waitlist. A real health brand now lives in our city. https://www.nekohealth.com/us/en/press/neko-health-is-opening-in-new-york-city and https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/03/spotify-billionaires-body-scan-startup-has-come-to-america/ PaleBlueDot AI raises $200M, Series C, at a $3.2B valuation. It rents GPU clusters to AI teams. Demand for compute is still the safest shovel in the gold rush. https://techstartups.com/2026/10/02/startup-funding-news-today-october-2-2026-palebluedot-ai-certo-aerospace-drivex-more/ Clay's Kareem Amin speaks at TechCrunch Disrupt, October 13-15, in San Francisco. His talk is on the "GTM engineer," a new job category. Clay tripled ARR to $100M in February and raised $115M at a $7.1B valuation in September. If you do sales or growth, watch this role. https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/02/techcrunch-disrupt-2026-clays-kareem-amin-on-the-rise-of-the-gtm-engineer/

"How we're teaching computers to understand pictures" by Fei-Fei Li. 18 minutes, TED 2015. It is the ImageNet story in her own voice, from before the $8.2B deal. Link: https://www.ted.com/talks/fei_fei_li_how_we_re_teaching_computers_to_understand_pictures

A randomized trial by Tiny Health found that microbiome interventions cut infants' odds of developing eczema by 83%. This week the company raised a $33M Series B, led by B Capital, and says it has built the world's largest longitudinal microbiome dataset, about 200,000 profiles. Its founder and CEO is Cheryl Sew Hoy. Source: https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2026/09/29/3370894/0/en/tiny-health-raises-33m-series-b-to-establish-microbiome-intelligence-as-the-standard-of-care.html

World model: AI that learns how 3D spaces work, so robots and games can practice in a fake world first. World Labs builds these. IPO window: The stretch of time when investors will buy new stocks. Right now it is mostly shut. Red team: People, or now AI agents, who attack your own systems on purpose to find weak spots. That is Armadin's whole product. Sources: https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/28/amd-will-acquire-fei-fei-lis-world-labs-for-8-2-billion/, https://www.benzinga.com/markets/ipos/26/10/62152426/openai-anthropic-are-bypassing-wall-streets-ipo-freeze-a-luxury-only-the-top-two-or-three-players-have and https://techstartups.com/2026/10/01/startup-funding-news-today-october-1-2026-armadin-foundational-frank-1club-osavul-more/

The Anthropic IPO. Polymarket's month market puts November as the most likely month, at 61%. It puts the closing valuation at $2.00T to $2.25T with 49%. The odds are live and move every day. My take: everyone is watching one listing while seven U.S. IPOs were postponed or pulled in Q3. Benzinga reports. The window is shut for most companies and open for one or two. If you are raising, plan for a long private road. Do not bet your runway on a window. Sources: https://polymarket.com/predictions/ipo and https://www.benzinga.com/markets/ipos/26/10/62152426/openai-anthropic-are-bypassing-wall-streets-ipo-freeze-a-luxury-only-the-top-two-or-three-players-have

Day 8 of 100. Still building FOUNDERS out loud. This newsletter gets a little sharper every week.

Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery are merging into one company called Skydance. The deal is worth about $110B and is set to close October 6. David Ellison, who founded the original Skydance film company, will run it. The new name comes from his first startup. A founder is taking the keys to HBO, CBS, CNN and the DC Universe. A federal judge approved a settlement with state attorneys general this week, which cleared the way. Source: https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/02/paramount-and-warner-bros-discovery-to-become-skydance/

Why does the IPO window close? When safe government bonds pay more, investors want more reward to buy a risky new stock. The 10-year Treasury yield hit 5.29% on September 29, a 19-year high. New IPOs that gained 24% on average in June gained under 1% by late September. So companies delay. They need a good first-day pop to look strong. Only the biggest names can wait. OpenAI raised $122B privately in March and wants at least $30B more. A small company cannot do that. Source: https://www.benzinga.com/markets/ipos/26/10/62152426/openai-anthropic-are-bypassing-wall-streets-ipo-freeze-a-luxury-only-the-top-two-or-three-players-have