Roelof Botha Steps Down, Amazon Clashes with Perplexity, Sora Goes Global, and Designer Wednesday!
This Week in AI Newsletter 11/5/2025
Thanks for tuning into today’s This Week in AI Daily Newsletter!
- Oliver
Roelof Botha is stepping down from his role as Managing Partner (Senior Steward) to an advisory role. Botha joined Sequoia in 2003 and assumed the leadership role in 2022. He appointed Alfred Lin and Pat Grady as the new co-stewards. The Wall Street Journal suggested his departure followed a turbulent period marked by the loss of Sequoia’s China arm, setbacks from the FTX investment, the exit of several high-profile partners, and internal political tensions involving Shaun Maguire. More here.
Softbank and OpenAI launch a new joint venture in Japan. Softbank will be investing billions more in a joint venture called SB OAI Japan, owned 50-50 by the two firms. They will be providing so-called “crystal Intelligence,” an enterprise AI solution that will integrate OpenAI’s latest products with tailored implementation and system integration services. More here.
Two ex-Meta employees launch Sandbar, a company that created a ring that is able to take voice notes and control music. The ring, named Stream, lets you record your thoughts by simply pressing and holding the touchpad. It connects to an AI-powered app that helps you organize and edit notes, while its flat surface doubles as a media controller for playing, pausing, skipping tracks, and adjusting volume. More here.
The product will be priced at $249 for the silver version and $299 for the gold version, with an optional $10 monthly subscription. Shipping is slated to begin next summer.
Another humanoid startup has entered the scene: Physical Robots, focusing on upper-body dexterity with its new “π robot.” Founded by Phuong Nguyen, former co-founder of 1X Technologies (formerly Halodi Robotics). The company also announced a $4M seed round to accelerate development. More here.
Amazon sends legal threats to Perplexity over its browser Comet, claiming that it was violating their terms of service by not identifying itself as an agent. The multinational technology company, sent the AI search engine startup a cease-and-desist letter, which Perplexity responded to in a blog titled “Bullying is Not Innovation.” More here.
Google’s AI mode gets agentic capabilities, directly within search. The feature is available to all users who have opted into Google’s experimental program, Search Labs. With AI mode, you can complete tasks like “find dinner reservations near Times Square for four people at 8 PM this Friday” or “what are the best cheap concert ticket options on the floor to see Tame Impala this month in Austin, Texas.” More here.
Sora is now available for Android users in seven additional regions, including the U.S., Canada, and Japan. At launch, Sora reached one million downloads in under five days, faster than ChatGPT. This milestone was achieved while the app was only available to iOS users in the U.S. and Canada at the time. More here.
Shopify has seen a 7x increase in AI traffic since January, with AI-driven orders up 11x. This follows Shopify’s partnership with OpenAI in September, a move the company called the “biggest shift in technology since the internet” during its third-quarter earnings call. Shopify also reported 32% revenue growth. More here and here.
Anthropic projects $70B in revenue and $17B in cash flow by 2028. This growth comes as Anthropic’s business products continue to gain adoption, and Claude Code approaches $1B in ARR, up from $400M in July. Claude-Opus-4-1 remains the #1 model on LM Arena. More here.
People Inc. has signed an AI licensing deal with Microsoft. The media giant will become a launch partner for Microsoft’s publisher content marketplace. The announcement came alongside confirmation from People Inc. that Google Search traffic has dropped from 54% to 24%, due to the rise of AI-powered search. More here.
Designer Wednesday!
My 3 favorite web designers this week are:
Kail and Aron both experiment with Midjourney, which I think is an excellent way to explore styles and build mood boards that inspire strong brand direction. Mike Smith, meanwhile, designed the Superhuman logo. A masterclass in modern logo design and presentation.
I really like the design corner... let's keep that up! Would be very cool to have a designer come on TWIST and do "design reviews" of popular products or services for... foudners would LEARN A LOT!
Bezos is a Perplexity seed investor. So that’s funny.