Forbes Talks

Two years ago, Replit CEO Amjad Masad invited Paul Graham, the legendary cofounder of the startup incubator Y Combinator, to his home office near Palo Alto, California, to give Graham a sneak peek of Replit’s new and novel product: an AI agent that could write its own code. It was the first time Graham had seen what would become known as vibe coding. “The name hadn’t even been invented,” Graham recalls. 

As the agent got to work building apps, Graham, a lifelong computer programmer, instinctively looked at the code. Masad scolded him, saying there was no need, arguing that the source code would only be an unimportant byproduct, and programming would now be done in English — a radical change for software engineers. “It was mind-bending,” Graham, one of Replit’s earliest investors, tells Forbes. “He’s bald with that beard, and I think he was actually wearing a black turtleneck. I felt like he was a Bond villain: ‘Hahaha! Don’t look at that code!’”

Now vibe coding, of course, is everywhere, and Replit is looking to take it a step further. On Wednesday, the startup announced its new agent, simply called Agent 4, which aims to deliver a new type of interface for vibe coding. Like last time, Masad demoed the new agent to Graham at his home office in early March. After the meeting, Graham gushed about the product on X. “Amjad showed me Replit's latest stuff,” he posted. “They're about to redefine vibe coding in a way that will seem obvious in retrospect. A lot of the biggest ideas have that quality.”

By Richard Nieva,

Senior Writer

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Sinead Gorey is redefining the contemporary fashion space one drop at a time. In this interview with Alex York, the London-based designer breaks down how she went from a working-class background in Bromley to showing at London Fashion Week and styling icons like Sabrina Carpenter and Lady Gaga.

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How does a star of global hits like The Vampire Diaries and H2O: Just Add Water transition from playing iconic supernatural characters to becoming a full-time creator with a social media following built on vulnerability and authenticity?

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Troy Bonde and his cofounder, Winston Alfieri, are taking aim at America’s estimated $2.5 billion (sales) pasta sauce market. Their brand, Los Angeles–based Sauz, has attracted younger shoppers with creative combos like miso-garlic and hot honey marinara—flavors far from traditional red-sauce Italian-American cuisine. “We try to identify flavor trends across categories that are familiar enough that we don’t necessarily have to go educate consumers on,” says Bonde, Sauz’s CEO. The pair has raised nearly $22 million from VCs and is on track to make $15 million in revenue by the end of 2025. Bonde and Alfieri initially partnered during the pandemic making a hand sanitizer dispenser that doubled as a thermometer. To conserve cash, they lived on pasta. Soon, they grew tired of limited flavor options and, as Covid faded, pivoted from sanitizer to sauce. Today, their jars are sold in 8,000 retail locations such as Whole Foods, Sprouts and Target.

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Nothing to wear? Check out Alta, Jenny Wang’s AI-powered stylist and shopping app. Upload photos of items you own (or recent shopping receipts) to create a digital closet. The New York–based startup will then list outfit suggestions or—and this is where Wang hopes to make money—recommend new stuff to buy based on the weather, season and occasion. “Fashion is so interesting from a data perspective,” says Wang, a Harvard-trained engineer. “Alta is both utilitarian in that it helps you decide what to wear and buy, but it’s also just aspirational.” Amid the sea of AI-powered closet startups, Alta is backed by both venture and fashion heavyweights, including Menlo Ventures, which led the company’s $11 million seed round in June, LVMH-backed Algaé Ventures and Michelle Obama’s stylist, Meredith Koop.

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Imagine a Tesla for watercraft. Jonathan Lord and cofounders Ben Sorkin and Daylin Frantin started building electric boating company Flux Marine in 2018 after years of research at Princeton University. Seven years later, the pair have raised more than $30 million in funding to develop EVs for the sea. “Since age 14, I spent many days out on the water. I had the opportunity to see a beautiful environment—except for the noise and the smell of these gas engines,” Lord says. Flux Marine operates out of Bristol, Rhode Island, and builds high-performance electric outboard motors (up to 150 horsepower) and battery systems for small boats. Flux largely works with existing manufacturers to power new builds—boats with Flux engines cost around $120,000. But it also offers some “repowers,” in which they’ll swap out old engines to make existing boats more climate-friendly. “The electric revolution is happening,” Lord says. “We’re really just at the beginning.”

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Follow The Enterprise Zone 

Louis Carr, the President of Black Entertainment Television (BET), sits down with Forbes senior writer Jabari Young on The Enterprise Zone at Nasdaq MarketSite. With more than 30 years at BET, Carr shares his vision for the network as it enters a new chapter with Paramount Skydance. He talks about bringing back a popular awards show, explains the decision to cancel 106 & Sports, and opens up about his Chicago roots, real estate investments, and what he looks for in up-and-coming media executives.

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On "Forbes Newsroom," former Sen. John Danforth (R-MO), a chair of "Our Republican Legacy," discussed President Donald Trump issuing a threat that a "whole civilization will die" hours before announcing the U.S. and Iran agreed to a temporary ceasefire, plus his thoughts on lawmakers vacationing during this uncertain time.

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President Donald Trump announced the U.S. and Iran reached a temporary ceasefire on Tuesday night, less than two hours before his self-imposed deadline for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz or "a whole civilization will die." Just one day later, Iran on Wednesday accused the U.S. of violating the ceasefire agreement and reportedly announced it closed the Strait of Hormuz. The White House said that what Iran is saying publicly about the closure is different what they are telling the Trump administration privately. Clayton Allen, the head of Eurasia Group's U.S. practice, joined "Forbes Newsroom" to discuss the "fragile" state of the ceasefire.

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Forbes Reporter Phoebe Liu sat down to discuss the escalating legal battle between Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman ahead of their upcoming April trial. Liu also discusses the allegations of anti-competitive behavior and the financial pressures facing leading AI firms as they navigate rapid innovation, massive capital requirements, and intense competition for market dominance in the emerging artificial general intelligence sector.

InJanuary, OpenAI’s CEO of applications Fidji Simo defended OpenAI’s spaghetti-at-the-wall product approach—ads, shopping, health, a social network, browser, physical devices, video generation and an App Store-like marketplace—as variations on the same theme. “AI is going to transform everything,” Simo told Forbes at the time. “And so we don’t really think of these as completely separate bets.” 

But just two months later, OpenAI reversed course on its flashiest initiative yet: its once-viral, beloved-by-some Sora video model and app, and a “landmark” licensing deal with Disney that was set to include a $1 billion equity investment. The retreat points to a strategic shift toward more financial discipline within the company. Facing pressure to build products that actually make money ahead of a potential upcoming IPO — and with rival Anthropic gaining steam — OpenAI has been shedding so-called “side quests” left and right. With $13 billion in 2025 revenue but still deeply unprofitable, the company is now refocusing on areas where demand is already proven: coding and enterprise productivity tools.

Every startup pivots if things aren’t working. “We will make some good decisions and some missteps, but we will take feedback and try to fix the missteps very quickly,” CEO Sam Altman wrote in a blog post about Sora in October. 

But OpenAI’s reversals have felt like whiplash. And with many other projects and deals announced but not yet realized — like an AI hardware product designed by famed Apple designer Jony Ive, whose company OpenAI acquired for more than $6 billion in (mostly unvested) stock, or a secretive social network based on people’s biometrics — it’s not clear which of Altman’s many promises will turn into reality. 

Here are all the products and deals that OpenAI announced which haven’t lived up to the hype, whether it’s because they’re dead, delayed or still to be determined.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/phoebeliu/2026/03/31/openai-graveyard-deals-and-products-havent-happened-openai/

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