The offers from growing AI-sales armies at companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic are so rich that some early-stage startup founders say they won’t need to raise money as soon as they expected, and others have been able to play AI companies off one another. Startups have received offers that in some cases amounted to more than $3 million in credits from multiple companies for cloud computing and tokens, the central units used to measure and charge for AI usage, founders say. That is the size of the median U.S. seed round, according to PitchBook.

Alphabet’s GOOGL 1.82%increase; up pointing triangle Google Cloud is giving some startups up to $500,000 in cloud credits and early access to Gemini models. It also occasionally offers special access to DeepMind engineers, a Google spokesman said. Microsoft and Amazon Web Services also offer startups special perks.

The pitched battle for business users comes as AI companies seek lasting streams of revenue. They hope that by winning startups as customers early in the life of new companies, their tools will become integral to the venture’s growth over time.  

OpenAI and Anthropic are offering a string of promotions and one-time bonuses, even as both companies face enormous pressure to improve their margins ahead of expected initial public offerings. They also face competition from increasingly powerful “open weight,” or free models, as well as cheaper ones, many of which were developed in China.

The token deals available to founders “directly correlate to the scale you can grow your product,” said Ibarra, co-founder of Dialogus. “If you’re not getting this deal, you will need to raise money to buy those.”

Anthropic’s revenue skyrocketed late last year as millions of new users tapped their Claude Code and Cowork software to autonomously complete a range of tasks. Claude’s viral popularity helped launch the “agentic” AI era, in which top AI companies are increasingly focused on building tools that customers can use to complete long-running knowledge-work tasks, such as coding and deep research.

For months, OpenAI struggled to match the strength of Anthropic’s coding-focused models and products, giving its younger rival the advantage in the lucrative enterprise market. Companies initially nudged employees to use AI more in their work, but soon some saw the bills as prohibitively high.

OpenAI’s fortunes began to change after the March release of a new model, called GPT-5.4, that matched many of Anthropic’s capabilities. The company has since deployed its salespeople to sell its Codex tool, which is powered by its GPT model, to startups across Silicon Valley, oftentimes offering volume discounts and other sweeteners to win new customers.

Semianalysis, an AI-infrastructure data and consulting firm, recently published research showing how heavily the companies are subsidizing power users.

Subscribers to Anthropic’s Claude Max plan, which costs $200 a month, are able to burn tokens worth $8,000 in their usage-based plans administered through an application programming interface, or API, which allows them to integrate Anthropic’s technology into their products. Maximum use of OpenAI’s ChatGPT Pro 20x plan, which also costs $200 a month, can burn tokens worth $14,000.

In their quest to secure new business customers, Anthropic and OpenAI have zeroed in on startups participating in Y Combinator, the Silicon Valley institution that launched Airbnb and Stripe. In May, Sam Altman announced that OpenAI would give $2 million in token credits to every startup participating in the accelerator program in exchange for equity in those companies.

Y Combinator runs four cohorts a year. Poppy Lynch for WSJ

Around the same time, Anthropic began offering Y Combinator startups $500,000 in free credits, a sharp increase from the $30,000 it previously offered, an Anthropic spokeswoman said. Anthropic’s offer doesn’t require startups to give up equity.

Soon afterward, in recent weeks, OpenAI adjusted its deal, offering startups $500,000 in free credits—no equity required—with an optional additional $1.5 million in credits in exchange for equity, according to people familiar with the matter.

The back-and-forth reflects the intense battle the companies are in to sway young startups that could become large customers in the future. Model providers hope that by offering these companies discounts, they can lock them into their ecosystem. 

At an event hosted to kick off the summer season of Y Combinator’s program, representatives from OpenAI and Anthropic, among others, met with startup founders and offered advice about making the most of their token usage, including by embracing loop engineering, or teaching AI agents to repeat a task until they have achieved their assigned goal.

Touchmark, an AI startup that was accepted by Y Combinator in May, was immediately granted $1 million in token credits from OpenAI and Anthropic before the accelerator even kicked off its summer session.  

For Ilia Bolgov, co-founder of Touchmark, the credits meant “quite a lot of time to go all-in on tokenmaxxing,” a term for using as many tokens as possible, he said. “It’s hard to imagine productivity now without these deals.”

The credits represent a massive potential investment on behalf of the model providers. Y Combinator runs four cohorts a year, with recent cohorts enrolling about 200 companies each, meaning OpenAI and Anthropic could offer up to $800 million in combined AI credits in the next year.

“The world of AI is being powered by OpenAI and Anthropic because they are giving startups the money to pay for it,” said Christopher Acker, co-founder of SuperPenguin, a firm that helps companies track their AI spending.

“If I’m choosing between a really cheap Chinese model that I actually have to pay for, and a very expensive Anthropic model that I don’t have to pay for, I’m going to pick the Anthropic model,” Acker said. “I’m always going to pick the one for which I have free credits.”

“The future is changing,” says Jain, the president of a hedge fund. “If we’re still teaching the kids the way we used to 60, 70, 80 years ago, how are we preparing them?”

Alternative schooling is having a moment among high-income parents. Families who can afford to send their kids to the best K-8 institutions are seeking new options. They’re exploring schools that prioritize life skills and call teachers “guides” or “coaches.” Some use AI-based tutors that tailor the curriculum to the child’s individual needs.

Parents considering less traditional options say AI is poised to have significant effects on the economy, so old ways of learning may no longer make sense. (Forge Prep’s marketing materials refer to it as “built for 2040. Not 1940.”) They also say AI tutors and hands-on learning in smaller groups offer opportunities for a more individualized curriculum.

Unlike public schools, these institutions aren’t required to report metrics to the state and their relative effectiveness can be difficult to evaluate. 

The Forge Prep campus is undergoing renovation at the site of a former Catholic school in Livingston, N.J. Forge Prep

Alpha School, which focuses on K-8, though some locations go through high school, has garnered the most attention in recent years. It started in Austin, Texas, 12 years ago and added eight schools around the country in 2025, San Francisco and New York among them. This fall, nearly two dozen more are set to open, including in Palo Alto, the East Bay and Malibu, Calif. Alpha also sells home-schooling software and its skills-based curriculum.

Shaun Johnson, a venture capitalist who lives in San Francisco, plans to send his son to Alpha kindergarten. The school provides two hours of AI-based tutoring followed by interactive project-based workshops. The local tuition is $75,000 a year.

Johnson made the decision after being unhappy with the public school his family got in the local lottery. He didn’t strongly consider local standard private-school options.

“We recognize that education is likely broken the way it is and there’s going to be entrepreneurs that try to fix it,” he says. “You want someone to be able to think on their feet and navigate the world, not necessarily a recitation of facts in a particular discipline.”

Alpha’s main draw, Johnson says, is a more personalized way for his son to learn. The AI platform records students’ interactions, including how well they are paying attention. A child’s performance influences the curriculum for the coming days and weeks in what Johnson thinks of as a positive learning loop.

“It’s not AI for AI’s sake,” he says. “It’s personalization.”

High-profile fans of Alpha have included billionaire Bill Ackman. Its in-person guides are all paid six figures, according to Anna Davlantes, a spokeswoman. Remote coaches who assist with the AI software are spread out around the globe.

“Parents who can send their kids to any school are looking at alternative models to see if that’s a better fit for their child in terms of arming their kids with skills for the future,” she says. Many of the New York Alpha families work in finance, including venture capital, or are entrepreneurs, while the Bay Area ones are largely made up of people in tech-related professions, adds Davlantes.

Alpha School students from the San Francisco campus go rock climbing at Palisades Tahoe. Alpha School

Alpha School co-founder MacKenzie Price previously told The Wall Street Journal that the school also aims to keep hot-button social issues out of its classrooms.

Variations on project-based learning go back centuries, says Caroline Hoxby, a professor at Stanford University. What’s new are hybrid programs that mix in AI. 

There’s currently an awareness, especially among parents who work in tech, that AI will take the place of routine or pattern-based thinking. “They are very inclined to take on tools for their children that are not traditional tools,” says Hoxby.

Yet the effectiveness of such models is largely unknown, she says, adding, “I am not a cheerleader for any type of education for which there is negligible scientific-type empirical evidence.”

Alpha’s Davlantes says, “We have globally renowned learning scientists who help build Alpha’s model based on decades of foundational research,” adding, “They are part of a larger team of highly qualified academics behind the platform.”

An entrepreneurial or AI focus might also narrow the appeal, leading to a more homogenous student population than standard private schools, says Victor Lee, a professor with the Stanford Graduate School of Education.

And by avoiding the title “teacher,” the models can inadvertently minimize the profession, he adds.

“It does have a negative impact on recognizing the work and skills that teachers bring,” he says. “It diminishes the role and degree of professionalism that teaching requires.”

Davlantes says Alpha’s guides took a vote and opted against being called teachers.

Renzi Stone, who runs a boutique marketing strategy firm in Oklahoma City, recently started spending around $800 a month on Alpha’s at-home software platform for his son, who just finished eighth grade. Stone estimates that over the years he’s spent well over $300,000 on private education for his two kids. 

He’s been happy with the culture and the community but disappointed by academic outcomes. He believes AI can make screen time far more productive for students.

“I think this is a sea-change moment in our country where we need to reimagine curriculum,” he says.

Stone’s son will do nine weeks of Alpha School tutoring this summer: He’s working to get his son’s private school to pilot the Alpha software.

A child leaves a note during a Forge Prep campus tour for students and families in May. Jeff Miller/Forge Prep

Anand Sanwal, who runs a market intelligence platform and founded Forge Prep in New Jersey, says he received 600 applications for this coming fall. There will be 34 students across four grades but eventually the school will go through 12th grade with 400 total students. Once there is a graduating class, a student who starts a company and works on it full-time after graduation is eligible for a $200,000 investment from Forge.

As for Forge not reporting performance data as public schools do, Sanwal says, “There’s nothing that would suggest if we look at their metrics that things are going well.”

Tuition for the inaugural class is between $24,000 and $36,000, with 30% of students on financial aid. Next year tuition will rise to $60,000.

Sanwal says the school’s take on technology is phone free and light on Chromebooks, and all guides are former teachers. Kids will use AI for “creation not consumption.”

“The world is changing really fast,” he says. “I’m pretty sure the model the parents had when they were in school is not going to work for what’s about to happen.”

Singh said he found the will in his dead grandfather’s belongings. The office of Armstrong, who said he never met Hsieh and yet was named a co-executor for Hsieh’s estate in the surprise will, received another befuddling document: a death certificate of Singh’s grandfather. It was from Balochistan, a province in Pakistan. 

With over a year of mounting mystery and no real answers, the court approved forensic testing of the purported will, which began in the first week of June, kicking off the next phase in an already tortured legal battle for the future of Hsieh’s estate. 

The peculiar details in his contested fortune hark back to another strange will from 50 years ago, involving yet another Las Vegas-based entrepreneur, known more now for his oddities than his accomplishments: Howard Hughes.

In 1976, three weeks after the death of the reclusive billionaire, a handwritten document claiming to be Hughes’s will appeared at the headquarters of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City.

Roughly 40 purported wills emerged after the death of reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes. Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

Dubbed the “Mormon Will,” it was one of roughly 40 purported wills that emerged after Hughes’s death, and hundreds of people came forward to claim some of his vast fortune. The Mormon Will, however, received the most thorough scrutiny, enduring a seven-month jury trial and dueling testimonies by forensic experts until it was eventually declared a forgery.

“The scenario for this particular document is almost identical to what happened with Hughes,” said Albert H. Lyter III, a forensic chemist who was asked by the courts in the 1970s to examine and testify on the Mormon will. 

The mystery will for Hsieh could face a similar legal process. Comparisons between Hsieh and Hughes have already been made in Las Vegas court by Judge Gloria Sturman. 

A lot is at stake for the family. The Hsieh will included a “no contest” clause directed at Hsieh’s parents and two younger brothers. If even one of them challenged the document, they would all get nothing. Hsieh’s father, Richard Hsieh, has demanded a jury trial.

Hsieh’s family declared the will a “scam” in December and asked the courts to invalidate the document, but the court in May appointed a “special master” to oversee forensic testing. The family has also hired their own forensic experts.

If the findings between the two teams of experts are at odds, that would mirror the trial for the Hughes Mormon Will.

A forged will and a brothel

The Mormon Will appeared one day in 1976 on a desk at the headquarters of the Utah church. It divided up Hughes’s estimated $2.5 billion estate to a few medical, educational and social groups, family members, employees and the church.

But perhaps the most bizarre directive in the will: that one-sixteenth of Hughes’s estate, or $156 million, go to Melvin Dummar, a gas-station operator in Utah.

Melvin Dummar, a gas-station operator in Utah, claimed he had a reward in the Hughes Mormon Will. AP

Dummar claimed in court it was his reward after he found Hughes near a brothel one night, face down, and gave him a ride to Las Vegas. 

He initially claimed he didn’t know about the will at all. But after questioning by Hughes’s family lawyers, Dummar revealed he hadn’t only lied about not knowing about the will, he actually dropped the document off at the church’s headquarters.

Lyter, who was in his 20s at the time, was one of several experts asked to testify on the will’s authenticity. He worked in a unit of the Internal Revenue Service and often looked at documents for tax-fraud cases.

His expertise was in ink analysis, which involved a series of physical and chemical procedures to determine the make and model of ink used.

“At the time, there was nobody in the private sector that would’ve been appropriate to do the ink analysis,” the 75-year-old said.

In testimony for Nevada and Texas courts, he shared findings that the ink used was consistent with the document’s purported date, supporting the authenticity of the will. 

Other forensic experts, particularly in handwriting analysis, concluded that the will didn’t match Hughes’s strokes, recalled Lyter. A jury eventually declared the will a forgery.

A ‘time of the essence’ test

<a href="http://Zappos.com" rel="nofollow">Zappos.com</a> CEO Tony Hsieh speaking at a convention in Las Vegas in 2014. Charley Gallay/Getty Images

In May, a Las Vegas judge appointed forensic expert Gerry LaPorte as the “special master” to oversee forensic testing of the Hsieh will. LaPorte, who runs his own private practice, is also currently the laboratory director for a federal investigations unit.

LaPorte has worked on a number of high-profile cases as a forensics expert. He has examined threat letters sent to past U.S. presidents including George W. Bush and Barack Obama. A judge for the Southern District of New York requested he examine the authenticity of a diary belonging to an unnamed victim of Jeffrey Epstein. 

Probate cases are far from unusual for LaPorte. “I have probably five active cases right now involving wills,” he said. LaPorte was unable to speak on the specifics of his work on the Hsieh case, but much of his forensic testing process has been outlined in court filings.

He and his team shipped roughly 150 pounds worth of forensic equipment, boxed in Pelican cases, from his Virginia laboratory to Las Vegas for an on-site examination of the Hsieh will at the courthouse, which took place in early June. 

The main forensic test conducted was around ink analysis, including on the signatures. Ink analysis work “is a ‘time of the essence’ test since the ink used for the signatures on the 2015 Will could be in an active drying process if they were applied within the two years,” wrote LaPorte. 

Other tests that could eventually be conducted on the purported will include handwriting analysis of the signatures as well as fingerprints and DNA scans of the document.  

In the room with LaPorte was Larry Stewart, a forensic expert hired by Hsieh’s family, who also conducted his own examinations of the document.

Stewart, who declined to be interviewed, was the former lab director and chief forensic scientist at the U.S. Secret Service. He now runs his own private practice.

Stewart has worked on a number of famous cases, including the Unabomber and the reinvestigations of the murders of Martin Luther King Jr. and President John F. Kennedy. 

Forensic expert Larry Stewart, pictured in New York in 2004, was hired by Hsieh’s family. Zack Seckler/AP

Perhaps most infamously, in 2004, Stewart was accused of lying during his expert testimony in Martha Stewart’s trial related to sales of ImClone Systems stock. Larry Stewart was found not guilty of perjury. The next year, he stepped down from government service.

According to LaPorte’s written recommendation to the court, he and his team will issue a comprehensive written report by July 24. Afterward, the Hsieh family’s experts will be able to respond.

If LaPorte’s findings support the veracity of the purported will, the already protracted legal battle will continue on. 

Meanwhile, none of the witnesses who signed the document have come forward to the court, and Singh—the man who allegedly sent the mystery will and called Armstrong’s law firm offices—appears to have vanished.

Six mysterious Russian satellites launched earlier this year have been creeping toward an observation spacecraft used by Ukraine.