Starcast Join the waitlist
Equity

Equity

What startups are building next, according to OpenAI’s Head of Startups

Nov 12, 2025 · 32m

Coming soon to iPhone. Already have it? “Listen in Starcast” takes you straight there.

On this episode

About this episode

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…