Hacker News with Generative AI: Startups

Saronic raises $600M in Series C to mass-produce autonomous warships (techcrunch.com)
Austin-based defense startup Saronic has raised a $600 million Series C to build an autonomous ship factory called “Port Alpha,” it announced yesterday, quadrupling its valuation to $4 billion from its last round.

Robotics, Defense, Startups, Funding, Autonomous Vehicles

8 points by smcin 6 hours ago | 6 comments

Humane (Or Red Flags to Spot for Next Time) (lmnt.me)
There’s a lot to take away from Humane’s story, but first, I want to share something I said on Twitter in July 2022, a full year before Humane revealed their product, the Ai Pin:

Technology, Startups, Analysis

6 points by mantia 7 hours ago | 4 comments

IVF insurance startup Future Family promises a baby or your money back (techcrunch.com)
For decades, couples going through in vitro fertilization have had to spend tens of thousands of dollars on the procedures with no guarantee of success.

IVF, Healthcare, Startups, Insurance, Business

17 points by impish9208 21 hours ago | 2 comments

Troubled electric truck maker Nikola files for bankruptcy (techcrunch.com)
Hydrogen electric trucking startup Nikola Corp. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Wednesday after it failed to find a buyer or secure additional funds to maintain operations.

Electric Vehicles, Bankruptcy, Startups, Automotive Industry

92 points by moose44 1 day ago | 95 comments

The Unicorns Are Zombies (bloomberg.com)
Somewhat surprisingly, the phrase “zombie unicorn” does not appear in the Money Stuff archive. “Blood unicorn,” sure, in Greek even. “Vampire unicorn,” once. “Ghost unicorn” too. “Decacorn,” absolutely. “Centicorn,” yes. “Double eagle unicorn,” for some reason.1 But here’s the first “zombie unicorn,” from Bloomberg’s Katie Roof:

Finance, Startups, Technology

10 points by ioblomov 2 days ago | 2 comments

Launch HN: Promptless (YC W25) – Automatic updates for customer-facing docs (ycombinator.com)
Hi HN! I’m Prithvi, and my co-founder Frances and I built Promptless (https://gopromptless.ai), an AI teammate that proactively updates docs while you ship software.

Software, Artificial Intelligence, Startups, Documentation, Customer Experience

104 points by prithvi2206 2 days ago | 60 comments

Talking to people before building took me from failed projects to $9K in revenue (ycombinator.com)
You’ve probably heard that you need to talk to your target audience before building, but I think you need to hear it again.

Startups, Customer Development, Business, Revenue, Entrepreneurship

5 points by felixheikka 2 days ago | 8 comments

Grok3 Launch [video] (x.com)

Video, Startups

619 points by travelhead 3 days ago | 1336 comments

Deel vs. Remote, which is the better pick for a US based company? (ycombinator.com)

Remote Work, HR, Payroll, Startups, International Expansion

13 points by rachelbennett 3 days ago | 15 comments

Ilya Sutskever's SSI is raising $1B+ on $30B valuation (siliconangle.com)
Safe Superintelligence Inc., a company co-founded by former OpenAI employee and co-founder Ilya Sutskever is reportedly in the process of raising a new round of more than $1 billion on a valuation of more than $30 billion.

Artificial Intelligence, Startups, Funding, Valuation

10 points by 0xjunhao 3 days ago | 2 comments

Ask HN: Small Ideas vs. Big Ideas? (ycombinator.com)
I've been thinking about this one for a while, does it make sense to work on small ideas? Something like a utility a PDF converter or a small game and attempt to make it into an asset generating $10K - $30K in MRR? Or is it better to aim for building something as big as you can?

Entrepreneurship, Startups, Business Models, SaaS

54 points by amukbils 3 days ago | 69 comments

Small Tech (2020) (scattered-thoughts.net)
I frequently see debates about whether it's better to be a cog at a giant semi-monopoly, or to take investment money in the hopes of one day growing to be head cog at a giant semi-monopoly.

Technology, Startups, Work Culture

155 points by codeAligned 3 days ago | 16 comments

How Unfair Is the Coin: Lessons from Building a Biotech Startup (ankitg.me)
I’m reviving my blog after some time away — it’s been an eventful 12 months. In February 2024, Reverie Labs, the startup I co-founded in 2017, was acquired by Ginkgo Bioworks. I’m now on leave from Ginkgo and I’ve joined Y Combinator as a Visiting Partner, giving me the chance to work with the next generation of companies. Especially in this new role, I’ve been thinking a bit about what worked, what didn’t work, and what lessons I can take forward.

Biotechnology, Startups, Entrepreneurship, Acquisitions

5 points by chaosprint 3 days ago | 0 comments

Launch HN: Roark (YC W25) – Taking the pain out of voice AI testing (ycombinator.com)
Hey HN, we’re James and Daniel, co-founders of Roark (https://roark.ai). We built a tool that lets developers replay real production calls against their latest Voice AI changes, so they can catch failures, test updates, and iterate with confidence.

Voice AI, Software, Testing, Startups, YC

60 points by zammitjames 3 days ago | 29 comments

Cogniba – N-Back Training for Brain Performance (ycombinator.com)
LAUNCH DAY!!!<p>I started building this startup 2 years ago. My first idea was targeting schools, since kids are the ones who get the biggest benefit out of brain training.

Brain Training, Startups, Education

8 points by marcoshernanz 3 days ago | 3 comments

Unsloth's 5 challenges to get a job offer of $500K/year and equity (twitter.com)

Career Advice, Salary Negotiation, Startups, Equity, Job Offers

16 points by amrrs 4 days ago | 16 comments

Microsoft 365 costs are too much (ycombinator.com)
Fellow founders, anyone else fed up with M365 turning into a commodity cash drain? What once felt like a premium productivity suite now feels like another unavoidable bill—with pricing hikes and a labyrinth of licensing options that seem designed to make us overpay. The recent price bumps and constant misselling of features force us to jump through hoops, all while we’re busy scaling our startups.

Microsoft 365, Business, Startups, Software, Pricing

20 points by HarshaaVardhan 5 days ago | 29 comments

The Unicorn Boom Is Over, and Startups Are Getting Desperate (bloomberg.com)
The billion-dollar startup bubble is deflating, and more than $1 trillion in value is locked up in companies with dwindling prospects.

Startups, Venture Capital, Economics, Technology

41 points by kjhughes 5 days ago | 38 comments

AI isn't going to build your startup (justinjackson.ca)
Chris Sacca recently claimed, "We are super fucked... almost all coding is fucking useless" because AI can now build apps on demand.

Artificial Intelligence, Startups, Software Development

14 points by mijustin 6 days ago | 2 comments

Kuchin/awesome-CTO: opinionated list of resources, with the emphasis on startups (github.com/kuchin)
A curated and opinionated list of resources for Chief Technology Officers and VP R&D, with the emphasis on startups and hyper-growth companies.

CTO, Startups, Resources, Technology

3 points by vinnyglennon 6 days ago | 0 comments

xAI Discussing $10B Raise at $75B Valuation (bloomberg.com)
Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI is canvassing potential investors for a roughly $10 billion funding round that would value the company at about $75 billion, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

Artificial Intelligence, Funding, Startups, Business, Technology

5 points by mfiguiere 6 days ago | 1 comments

Why do startups often have blog pages? is it for SEO? (ycombinator.com)
Why do startups often have blog pages? is it for SEO?

Startups, SEO, Content Marketing

14 points by the_alphalaser 6 days ago | 21 comments

Software, Startups

5 points by CeresBroker 6 days ago | 6 comments

My 2 year journey to building a successful product ($2,700 MRR) (ycombinator.com)
Today: Buildpad has now reached close to 150 paying customers and $2,700 MRR. We just released Buildpad 2.0 and I think this is the update that will take us to $10k MRR.

Startups, Product Development, Business

40 points by davidheikka 6 days ago | 13 comments

Anthropic's next major AI model could arrive within weeks (techcrunch.com)
AI startup Anthropic is gearing up to release its next major AI model, according to a report Thursday from The Information.

Generative AI, Artificial Intelligence, Startups

20 points by newusertoday 6 days ago | 7 comments

I built a failed startups goods website and named it VcSubsidized.com (vcsubsidized.com)
Failed startup? Don't worry, someone will definitely want your Herman Miller chairs and barely-used Macbook Pros.

Entrepreneurship, Startups, Secondhand Market, Technology

107 points by heshiebee 7 days ago | 35 comments

Ask HN: Solo Founders: How Do You Stay Organized? (ycombinator.com)
For those of you who are a one (wo)man shop: I'm curious to know how you stay on top of things.

Startups, Entrepreneurship, Productivity, Organization

20 points by cookiemonsieur 7 days ago | 8 comments

Antithesis: Lessons from Launch (antithesis.com)
It’s basically a cliche at this point for founders to write the “my experiences from one year of blah” post. Not quite “our incredible journey”-level, but getting there. And why not? It’s pure Hacker News catnip, practically guaranteed to get you views from the people who run the companies that you sell to and buy from in the Great Venture Flywheel / Startup Circle of Life. So I suppose I have to do one.

Startups, Venture Capital, Entrepreneurship, Web Development

24 points by Klaster_1 7 days ago | 2 comments

Getaround announces wind-down of U.S. operations (coverager.com)
Last night, Getaround sent an email announcing it is shutting down its US operations, which includes HyreCar, citing the need to preserve liquidity and maximize stakeholder value through its European business.

Business, Startups, Transportation

6 points by mfkp 8 days ago | 1 comments

How Did DeepSeek Build Its A.I. With Less Money? (nytimes.com)
Last month, U.S. financial markets tumbled after a Chinese start-up called DeepSeek said it had built one of the world’s most powerful artificial intelligence systems using far fewer computer chips than many experts thought possible.

Artificial Intelligence, Business, Technology, Startups

6 points by breadwinner 8 days ago | 0 comments