Mark Manara, head of startups at OpenAI, says the reality of AI has progressed far beyond ideas and experiments. AI-native companies are reaching $200 million in annual recurring revenue, and product cycles are shrinking from two-week sprints to one day. And OpenAI is helping with that.
Today on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Russell Brandom speaks with Manara at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 to explore how OpenAI is serving startups building on its platform.
Listen to the full episode to hear:
The shift from two-week sprints to one-day development cycles and what that means for how startups build engineering teams Why some startups are customizing their models for specific tasks in healthcare, finance, and other hard-to-reach areas Why AI hasn’t yet fully integrated with enterprises and why longer-term autonomous tasks remain the next frontier for both models and startups
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