What Startups Want from Future Models

Many see OpenAI as the ChatGPT company while rivals like Anthropic and Cohere eye the enterprise space. Marc Manara, OpenAI's head of startups, says the reality looks different: AI-native companies are hitting $200 million in ARR, and product cycles have shrunk from two-week sprints to single days. 

Today on TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Russell Brandom sat down with Manara at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 to explore how OpenAI is serving the startups building on its platform. 

Listen to the full episode to hear about: 

• The shift from two-week sprints to one-day development cycles, and what that means for how startups should structure their engineering teams 

• Why some startups are customizing models for specific tasks in healthcare, finance, and other verticals that seemed out of reach 

• Where AI still hasn't fully integrated with companies, and why longer-horizon autonomous tasks remain the next frontier for both models and startups 

Subscribe to Equity on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. 

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