▶ 11:51 · $DIPOLE-LABS · $DIPOLE-LABS · Dipole Labs building fully optical switches to solve GPU interconnect bottleneck

episode briefing

The State of Startups in 2026

2026-09-17 · 34 company · 0 thematic

sentiment

32 bull0 bear2 neu

speakers

brad

YC partner working with Deep Reach, a robotics data company leveraging global entrepreneur networks for real-world data collection.

jared

YC partner and co-host of The Light Cone; focuses on developer tools, AI infrastructure, and early-stage investing; former founder.

gary

Gary (likely Gary Tan, CEO of Y Combinator) hosts the 'How to Build the Future' series, interviewing frontier technology founders. He introduced Max Hodak as co-founder of Neuralink and founder of Science, and guided the conversation through BCI technology, Neuralink's origins, and Science's three-pillar pipeline.

diana

YC partner and co-host of The Light Cone; background in AR/VR and technical product; works with hard-tech and AI startups.

quote

“there's a company called Dipole Labs in the current batch that is replacing the switches that are in data centers which are essentially the like routing systems between different GPUs. ... these switches right now are electronic. And so th…”

—brad

now playing · $DIPOLE-LABS · $DIPOLE-LABS

$ANDURILbullish· mediumjared

Anduril exemplifies AI-accelerated defense tech: codegen collapsing hardware development cycles

AI code generation is removing the software engineering bottleneck that previously limited full-stack hardware startups, allowing companies like Anduril to iterate far faster with…

$EXOSATbullish· mediumjared

Exosat building sovereign Starlink alternative in YC summer 2026 batch

SpaceX's success inspired a wave of space startups; Exosat targets sovereign satellite internet demand, reflecting a broader space stack buildout including orbital solar and space…

$ICARUSbullish· highjared

Icarus solar-powered spy plane secures 7-figure DoD contracts for drone comms overwatch

Icarus's solar-powered U2-style aircraft provides persistent overwatch and drone communications — a critical enabler for modern drone warfare — winning early seven-figure contract…

$ICARUSbullish· mediumjared

Icarus solar-powered pseudo-satellite securing 7-figure DoD contracts for overwatch/comms

Icarus's high-altitude solar UAV provides persistent overwatch and comms relay for drone operations, addressing a critical DoD gap; early seven-figure contracts signal new defense…

$NINE-MOTHERSbullish· highjared

Nine Mothers anti-drone turret protects special forces with CV-guided shotgun system

Nine Mothers' computer-vision-guided shotgun turret addresses an existential DoD need: protecting scarce elite special forces from commodity drone attacks deep behind enemy lines,…

$NINE-MOTHERSbullish· mediumjared

Nine Mothers anti-drone shotgun turret protecting special forces; only viable defense against commodity drone swarms

Nine Mothers' CV-guided shotgun turret is nearly the sole solution for protecting high-value special operators from cheap drone attacks deep behind enemy lines; special forces pro…

$KNOX-METALSbullish· mediumgary

Knox Metals rebuilding US metal supply chain for defense tech at software-like growth rates

Knox Metals is reshoring metal manufacturing in Detroit to serve the new defense tech startup ecosystem; legacy suppliers cannot match the speed new startups require, creating a S…

$NOX-METALbullish· mediumjared

Nox Metal rebuilding US metal supply chain for defense tech at software growth rates

Nox Metal is revitalizing US metal manufacturing in Detroit to serve new defense tech startups that need faster supply chains than legacy providers can deliver, achieving software…

$NOX-METALbullish· highjared

Nox Metal rebuilding US metal supply chain in Detroit at software-like growth rates

Nox Metal is revitalizing hollowed-out US metal manufacturing in Detroit to serve new defense tech startups that need speed and responsiveness legacy suppliers cannot provide, ach…

$NVDA···bullish· highjared

Nvidia GPU pricing power persists as A100 prices appreciate amid structural supply shortage

A100 GPU hourly costs are appreciating rather than depreciating due to insatiable AI compute demand exceeding supply, signaling sustained pricing power and a multi-year data cente…

$NVDA···neutral· mediumjared

Nvidia GPU prices appreciating as architectures shift to lower precision

Nvidia A100/H100 GPU hourly costs are rising due to extreme demand, while each architecture generation reduces floating-point precision (FP32→FP8) because LLM workloads don't need…

$NVDA···neutral· mediumjared

Nvidia GPU prices appreciating on insatiable demand; precision roadmap opening door for competitors

A100/H100 GPU hourly costs are rising due to structural supply-demand imbalance, while Nvidia's architecture roadmap (FP32→FP16→FP8→FP2) reveals precision headroom that startups l…

$LAMB-LABSbullish· mediumjared

Lamb Labs developing new compute processors as Nvidia alternative amid precision scaling trend

As Nvidia architectures push to lower precision (FP32→FP8), Lamb Labs is building custom processors exploiting the insight that LLMs don't need full floating-point precision, crea…

$LAMB-LABSbullish· lowgary

Lamb Labs developing custom AI processors as Nvidia alternative leveraging reduced precision trend

Lamb Labs is building new compute processors targeting the industry-wide shift to lower precision (FP8/FP2) where Nvidia's general-purpose architecture carries overhead; custom si…

$BOTbullish· mediumjared

Bot pioneering ternary compute hardware to exploit LLM low-precision requirements

Bot is designing custom hardware using ternary (3-state) representation instead of binary, capitalizing on the trend that each Nvidia generation reduces precision (FP32→FP16→FP8)…

$DIPOLE-LABSbullish· mediumbrad

Dipole Labs building fully optical switches to solve GPU interconnect bottleneck

Dipole Labs is replacing electronic data center switches with fully optical switches to eliminate the interconnect bottleneck that limits GPU cluster performance as GPU speeds out…

$DIPOLE-LABSbullish· mediumdiana

Dipole Labs building first fully optical data center switch to eliminate GPU interconnect bottleneck

Electronic switches are becoming the bottleneck as GPU speeds scale; Dipole Labs' all-photonic switch removes optical-electrical-optical conversion, enabling direct GPU-to-GPU pho…

$DIPOLE-LABSbullish· highbrad

Dipole Labs building first fully optical data center switch to eliminate GPU interconnect bottleneck

Electronic switches are now the bottleneck as GPU speeds scale; Dipole Labs' all-photonic switch removes this constraint by routing GPU-to-GPU traffic entirely with light, unlocki…

$CRM···bullish· mediumgary

Salesforce moat intact as system-of-record transforms into AI agent harness via Slack

Salesforce's system-of-record moat holds because agents will use software more than humans; Slack's collaboration data and new AI harness position CRM to capture the agent-as-cust…

$CRM···bullish· mediumgary

Salesforce transforming into AI agent harness with Slack data moat

Salesforce is evolving from system of record into an AI harness where agents do work inside the platform, leveraging Slack's collaboration data as a moat; this could sustain SaaS…

$CRM···bullish· mediumgary

Salesforce becoming AI harness as agents drive system-of-record value

Salesforce's system-of-record moat is intact and strengthening as AI agents become primary software users; Slack's collaboration data gives Salesforce a harness advantage where ag…

$JUICEBOXbullish· highbrad

Juicebox AI recruiting agent doubles revenue per seat by automating outreach and scheduling

Juicebox evolved from LLM-powered search to full-cycle recruiting agents that contact candidates and schedule interviews, doubling or tripling revenue per customer as enterprises…

$JUICEBOXbullish· mediumgary

Juicebox AI recruiting agent doubling/tripling revenue per seat by automating full hiring workflow

Juicebox evolved from LLM-powered candidate search to an autonomous agent that contacts, schedules, and screens candidates; customers pay 2-3x more because the agent completes the…

$JUICEBOXbullish· mediumbrad

Juicebox AI recruiting agent doubling to tripling revenue per account

Juicebox evolved from LLM-powered people search to an autonomous recruiting agent that contacts candidates and schedules interviews, driving 2-3x revenue expansion per customer as…

$SCALE-AIbullish· highgary

Scale AI pioneered data labeling; now 12+ YC companies each earn $10M+ selling data/RL environments to labs

The data/RL environment category has exploded from Scale AI's 2016 niche to over a dozen YC companies generating $10M–$100M+ annually, as frontier labs spend billions on proprieta…

$SCALE-AIbullish· mediumgary

Scale AI pioneered data labeling for AI; now a dozen+ YC companies each >$10M/yr selling data/RL environments to labs

Scale AI created the data-labeling category in 2016; today the market has exploded with labs spending ~$1B annually on proprietary data and RL environments, spawning a dozen YC co…

$MERCORbullish· lowgary

Mercor scaling RL environment business alongside data labeling for frontier model training

Mercor expanded from data labeling into reinforcement learning environments, capturing part of the ~$1B lab spend on post-training data; RL environments for finance, coding, and r…

$BOOST-ROBOTICbullish· highgary

Boost Robotic fine-tunes Physical Intelligence models for data center cabling robots

Robotics foundation models (PI) require vertical-specific fine-tuning on proprietary real-world data to achieve the real-time reliability needed for tasks like data center cabling…

$BOOST-ROBOTICbullish· mediumgary

Boost Robotic fine-tuning robotics foundation models for data center cabling

Boost Robotic builds robots for data center cabling that require fine-tuning foundation models on custom environment data to achieve real-time reliability in specific physical set…

$BOOST-ROBOTICbullish· mediumgary

Boost Robotic automating data center cabling with PI fine-tunes; vertical robotics requires custom real-time models

Robotics foundation models must be fine-tuned on proprietary vertical data (thousands of hours of cabling footage) to achieve the real-time reliability required for physical tasks…

$PHYSICAL-INTELLIGENCEbullish· highbrad

Physical Intelligence foundation models become universal robotics base layer requiring vertical fine-tuning

PI's robotics foundation models are the new starting point for all YC robotics companies, but none work out-of-the-box — every vertical (data center cabling, box packing) requires…

$PHYSICAL-INTELLIGENCEbullish· mediumjared

Physical Intelligence robotics foundation models becoming universal base layer; all YC robotics cos fine-tuning PI

PI's generalist robotics models (π0) serve as the foundation that every YC robotics startup fine-tunes for vertical tasks; out-of-the-box performance is insufficient for real-time…

$PHYSICAL-INTELLIGENCEbullish· highjared

All YC robotics companies fine-tuning Physical Intelligence models, not using out-of-box

Physical Intelligence's robotics foundation models serve as a starting point, but every YC robotics company must fine-tune them on proprietary data for their specific vertical to…

$ULTRAbullish· highjared

Ultra achieves box-packing mastery by fine-tuning PI models on thousands of hours of proprietary footage

All YC robotics companies fine-tune Physical Intelligence base models; Ultra's thousands of hours of box-packing video creates a defensible data moat for warehouse automation.

←

▶ 11:51 · $DIPOLE-LABS · $DIPOLE-LABS · Dipole Labs building fully optical switches to solve GPU interconnect bottleneck

episode briefing

Y Combinator

The State of Startups in 2026

2026-09-17 · 34 company · 0 thematic

sentiment

32 bull0 bear2 neu

speakers

brad

YC partner working with Deep Reach, a robotics data company leveraging global entrepreneur networks for real-world data collection.

jared

YC partner and co-host of The Light Cone; focuses on developer tools, AI infrastructure, and early-stage investing; former founder.

gary

diana

YC partner and co-host of The Light Cone; background in AR/VR and technical product; works with hard-tech and AI startups.

quote

“there's a company called Dipole Labs in the current batch that is replacing the switches that are in data centers which are essentially the like routing systems between different GPUs. ... these switches right now are electronic. And so th…”

—brad

now playing · $DIPOLE-LABS · $DIPOLE-LABS

$ANDURILbullish· mediumjared

Anduril exemplifies AI-accelerated defense tech: codegen collapsing hardware development cycles

AI code generation is removing the software engineering bottleneck that previously limited full-stack hardware startups, allowing companies like Anduril to iterate far faster with…

$EXOSATbullish· mediumjared

Exosat building sovereign Starlink alternative in YC summer 2026 batch

SpaceX's success inspired a wave of space startups; Exosat targets sovereign satellite internet demand, reflecting a broader space stack buildout including orbital solar and space…

$ICARUSbullish· highjared

Icarus solar-powered spy plane secures 7-figure DoD contracts for drone comms overwatch

Icarus's solar-powered U2-style aircraft provides persistent overwatch and drone communications — a critical enabler for modern drone warfare — winning early seven-figure contract…

$ICARUSbullish· mediumjared

Icarus solar-powered pseudo-satellite securing 7-figure DoD contracts for overwatch/comms

Icarus's high-altitude solar UAV provides persistent overwatch and comms relay for drone operations, addressing a critical DoD gap; early seven-figure contracts signal new defense…

$NINE-MOTHERSbullish· highjared

Nine Mothers anti-drone turret protects special forces with CV-guided shotgun system

Nine Mothers' computer-vision-guided shotgun turret addresses an existential DoD need: protecting scarce elite special forces from commodity drone attacks deep behind enemy lines,…

$NINE-MOTHERSbullish· mediumjared

Nine Mothers anti-drone shotgun turret protecting special forces; only viable defense against commodity drone swarms

Nine Mothers' CV-guided shotgun turret is nearly the sole solution for protecting high-value special operators from cheap drone attacks deep behind enemy lines; special forces pro…

$KNOX-METALSbullish· mediumgary

Knox Metals rebuilding US metal supply chain for defense tech at software-like growth rates

Knox Metals is reshoring metal manufacturing in Detroit to serve the new defense tech startup ecosystem; legacy suppliers cannot match the speed new startups require, creating a S…

$NOX-METALbullish· mediumjared

Nox Metal rebuilding US metal supply chain for defense tech at software growth rates

Nox Metal is revitalizing US metal manufacturing in Detroit to serve new defense tech startups that need faster supply chains than legacy providers can deliver, achieving software…

$NOX-METALbullish· highjared

Nox Metal rebuilding US metal supply chain in Detroit at software-like growth rates

Nox Metal is revitalizing hollowed-out US metal manufacturing in Detroit to serve new defense tech startups that need speed and responsiveness legacy suppliers cannot provide, ach…

$NVDA···bullish· highjared

Nvidia GPU pricing power persists as A100 prices appreciate amid structural supply shortage

A100 GPU hourly costs are appreciating rather than depreciating due to insatiable AI compute demand exceeding supply, signaling sustained pricing power and a multi-year data cente…

$NVDA···neutral· mediumjared

Nvidia GPU prices appreciating as architectures shift to lower precision

Nvidia A100/H100 GPU hourly costs are rising due to extreme demand, while each architecture generation reduces floating-point precision (FP32→FP8) because LLM workloads don't need…

$NVDA···neutral· mediumjared

Nvidia GPU prices appreciating on insatiable demand; precision roadmap opening door for competitors

A100/H100 GPU hourly costs are rising due to structural supply-demand imbalance, while Nvidia's architecture roadmap (FP32→FP16→FP8→FP2) reveals precision headroom that startups l…

$LAMB-LABSbullish· mediumjared

Lamb Labs developing new compute processors as Nvidia alternative amid precision scaling trend

As Nvidia architectures push to lower precision (FP32→FP8), Lamb Labs is building custom processors exploiting the insight that LLMs don't need full floating-point precision, crea…

$LAMB-LABSbullish· lowgary

Lamb Labs developing custom AI processors as Nvidia alternative leveraging reduced precision trend

Lamb Labs is building new compute processors targeting the industry-wide shift to lower precision (FP8/FP2) where Nvidia's general-purpose architecture carries overhead; custom si…

$BOTbullish· mediumjared

Bot pioneering ternary compute hardware to exploit LLM low-precision requirements

Bot is designing custom hardware using ternary (3-state) representation instead of binary, capitalizing on the trend that each Nvidia generation reduces precision (FP32→FP16→FP8)…

$DIPOLE-LABSbullish· mediumbrad

Dipole Labs building fully optical switches to solve GPU interconnect bottleneck

Dipole Labs is replacing electronic data center switches with fully optical switches to eliminate the interconnect bottleneck that limits GPU cluster performance as GPU speeds out…

$DIPOLE-LABSbullish· mediumdiana

Dipole Labs building first fully optical data center switch to eliminate GPU interconnect bottleneck

Electronic switches are becoming the bottleneck as GPU speeds scale; Dipole Labs' all-photonic switch removes optical-electrical-optical conversion, enabling direct GPU-to-GPU pho…

$DIPOLE-LABSbullish· highbrad

Dipole Labs building first fully optical data center switch to eliminate GPU interconnect bottleneck

Electronic switches are now the bottleneck as GPU speeds scale; Dipole Labs' all-photonic switch removes this constraint by routing GPU-to-GPU traffic entirely with light, unlocki…

$CRM···bullish· mediumgary

Salesforce moat intact as system-of-record transforms into AI agent harness via Slack

Salesforce's system-of-record moat holds because agents will use software more than humans; Slack's collaboration data and new AI harness position CRM to capture the agent-as-cust…

$CRM···bullish· mediumgary

Salesforce transforming into AI agent harness with Slack data moat

Salesforce is evolving from system of record into an AI harness where agents do work inside the platform, leveraging Slack's collaboration data as a moat; this could sustain SaaS…

$CRM···bullish· mediumgary

Salesforce becoming AI harness as agents drive system-of-record value

Salesforce's system-of-record moat is intact and strengthening as AI agents become primary software users; Slack's collaboration data gives Salesforce a harness advantage where ag…

$JUICEBOXbullish· highbrad

Juicebox AI recruiting agent doubles revenue per seat by automating outreach and scheduling

Juicebox evolved from LLM-powered search to full-cycle recruiting agents that contact candidates and schedule interviews, doubling or tripling revenue per customer as enterprises…

$JUICEBOXbullish· mediumgary

Juicebox AI recruiting agent doubling/tripling revenue per seat by automating full hiring workflow

Juicebox evolved from LLM-powered candidate search to an autonomous agent that contacts, schedules, and screens candidates; customers pay 2-3x more because the agent completes the…

$JUICEBOXbullish· mediumbrad

Juicebox AI recruiting agent doubling to tripling revenue per account

Juicebox evolved from LLM-powered people search to an autonomous recruiting agent that contacts candidates and schedules interviews, driving 2-3x revenue expansion per customer as…

$SCALE-AIbullish· highgary

Scale AI pioneered data labeling; now 12+ YC companies each earn $10M+ selling data/RL environments to labs

The data/RL environment category has exploded from Scale AI's 2016 niche to over a dozen YC companies generating $10M–$100M+ annually, as frontier labs spend billions on proprieta…

$SCALE-AIbullish· mediumgary

Scale AI pioneered data labeling for AI; now a dozen+ YC companies each >$10M/yr selling data/RL environments to labs

Scale AI created the data-labeling category in 2016; today the market has exploded with labs spending ~$1B annually on proprietary data and RL environments, spawning a dozen YC co…

$MERCORbullish· lowgary

Mercor scaling RL environment business alongside data labeling for frontier model training

Mercor expanded from data labeling into reinforcement learning environments, capturing part of the ~$1B lab spend on post-training data; RL environments for finance, coding, and r…

$BOOST-ROBOTICbullish· highgary

Boost Robotic fine-tunes Physical Intelligence models for data center cabling robots

Robotics foundation models (PI) require vertical-specific fine-tuning on proprietary real-world data to achieve the real-time reliability needed for tasks like data center cabling…

$BOOST-ROBOTICbullish· mediumgary

Boost Robotic fine-tuning robotics foundation models for data center cabling

Boost Robotic builds robots for data center cabling that require fine-tuning foundation models on custom environment data to achieve real-time reliability in specific physical set…

$BOOST-ROBOTICbullish· mediumgary

Boost Robotic automating data center cabling with PI fine-tunes; vertical robotics requires custom real-time models

Robotics foundation models must be fine-tuned on proprietary vertical data (thousands of hours of cabling footage) to achieve the real-time reliability required for physical tasks…

$PHYSICAL-INTELLIGENCEbullish· highbrad

Physical Intelligence foundation models become universal robotics base layer requiring vertical fine-tuning

PI's robotics foundation models are the new starting point for all YC robotics companies, but none work out-of-the-box — every vertical (data center cabling, box packing) requires…

$PHYSICAL-INTELLIGENCEbullish· mediumjared

Physical Intelligence robotics foundation models becoming universal base layer; all YC robotics cos fine-tuning PI

PI's generalist robotics models (π0) serve as the foundation that every YC robotics startup fine-tunes for vertical tasks; out-of-the-box performance is insufficient for real-time…

$PHYSICAL-INTELLIGENCEbullish· highjared

All YC robotics companies fine-tuning Physical Intelligence models, not using out-of-box

Physical Intelligence's robotics foundation models serve as a starting point, but every YC robotics company must fine-tune them on proprietary data for their specific vertical to…

$ULTRAbullish· highjared

Ultra achieves box-packing mastery by fine-tuning PI models on thousands of hours of proprietary footage

All YC robotics companies fine-tune Physical Intelligence base models; Ultra's thousands of hours of box-packing video creates a defensible data moat for warehouse automation.