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Today?s show:

*There are $100 trillion in global assets sitting on top of what Hanover Park co-founder/CEO Chris Hladczuk calls ?human duct tape?: armies of accountants in offices patching together work from various legacy tools (QuickBooks, Excel) that are holding funds? own data hostage. Can all of this be replaced with AI? Find out how their startup went from overseeing $1B to $20B in assets in just 15 months.

PLUS, we flash back to March 2020, when Jason and Figma co-founder/CEO Dylan Field broke down the design tool?s initial go-to-market strategy, made some WILDLY inaccurate COVID predictions, and considered anxiety about ?SaaS burnout? years before the category went full apocalyptic.

Guests:

Chris Hladczuk on X: https://x.com/chrishlad

Hanover Park: https://www.hanoverpark.com/

Dylan Field: https://x.com/zoink

Figma: https://www.figma.com/

Relevant Links:

Turner Novak on X: https://x.com/TurnerNovak

Banana Capital: https://www.bananacapital.vc/

Emergence Capital: https://www.emcap.com/

Lux Capital: https://www.luxcapital.com/

Susa Ventures: https://susaventures.com/

Bill.com: https://www.bill.com/

METR: https://metr.org/

Granola AI note taker: https://www.granola.ai/

Vanta: https://www.vanta.com/

Foo Camp on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/foocamp

TechCrunch Mahalo coverage: https://techcrunch.com/2014/01/27/inside-mobile-news-launch/

Timestamps:

0:00 Hanover Park & the fund admin problem

3:32 Why funds outsource instead of building

5:44 Why fund accounting is so complex

10:38 The "one-click migration" goal

10:48 Northwest Registered Agent - Get more when you start your business with Northwest. In 10 clicks and 10 minutes, you can form your company and walk away with a real business identity ? Learn more at https://northwestregisteredagent.com/twist

13:51 Context vs. intelligence gaps

16:11 No PMs, No Designers

20:46 Vanta - Get $1000 off your SOC 2 at https://www.vanta.com/twist

23:18 This is a $100T opportunity

25:36 Flashback w/ Dylan Field of Figma

29:15 Sentry - Your team should be focused on shipping features ? not chasing down bugs. New users can get $240 in free credits when they go to https://sentry.io/twist and use the code TWIST

31:22 Pre-AI enterprise security worries

36:30 SaaS overload and SaaS burnout

37:30 The evolution of Figma pricing

42:38 The rise and fall of Mahalo dot com

51:38 The work-from-home revolution begins

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Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland

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Today?s show:

Forget the triple-triple-double-double-double; the new bar for startups hoping to raise venture capital has reached the stratosphere, though our venture panel is worried that startups are focusing too much on today?s problems that may not become companies tomorrow. During a lively VC roundtable, Cowboy?s Aileen Lee, Floodgate?s Mike Maples, and Lerer Hippeau?s Ben Lerer joined Alex to dig into exiting pre-AI startups, rising valuations, token spend, why they are keeping their funds small, and whether the government just tripped OpenAI and Anthropic!

Guest Links:

Aileen Lee https://x.com/aileenlee

Cowboy VC https://cowboy.vc

Mike Maples https://x.com/m2jr

Floodgate https://www.floodgate.com

Bene Lerer https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjlerer

Lere Hippeau https://www.lererhippeau.com

Timestamps:

0:00 Aileen Lee, Mike Maples, and Ben Lerer join the show

5:13 Venture liquidity returns: what SpaceX/Stripe distributions mean for LPs

9:13 Bending Spoons prices IPO at $29/share, roughly $18.4B valuation

10:31 Agree.com - Stop chasing invoices and automate your entire contract-to-cash stack. Go to https://agree.com and tell them Jason sent you to get 50% off for life!

12:09 "Companies get bought, not sold" ? Ben on taking first offers seriously

17:41 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations ? interviews, meetings, calls ? you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at https://Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!

19:34 Mutiny's burn-the-boats AI pivot with Jaleh Rezaei

20:19 Northwest Registered Agent - Get more when you start your business with Northwest. In 10 clicks and 10 minutes, you can form your company and walk away with a real business identity ? Learn more at https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twist

22:15 Mike's KeepSafe story: the "rule of 70" and profit-first companies

25:12 The new growth bar: 5x, 4x replaces triple-triple-double-double

28:55 Fund size is your strategy: why Floodgate and Lerer Hippeau stay small

30:11 CLA - Innovation takes balance. CLA's CPAs, consultants, and wealth advisors can help you get from startup to where you want to end up. Get started now at https://www.claconnect.com/withyou

37:39 The $100M Series A: Starcloud, General Intuition, Scale Cognition, Scout AI

40:35 King-making rounds and why mega-seeds destroy optionality

54:11 Open-weight models: the GLM-5.2 moment and going model-agnostic

55:30 Why fine-tuning open models is a treadmill, with Cursor/Kimi as an example

1:03:28 Grading the Trump administration on Mythos and Fable

1:06:33 Rising anti-AI sentiment, the wealth gap, and lessons from social media

1:11:43 Raising kids in the post-intelligence era

1:12:35 Where to find the panel and what each firm is investing in

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Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/

Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland

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Today?s show:

*It?s another All Star Summer, as we welcome back some of our favorite guests from throughout ?This Week in Startups? history.

Chamath Palihapitiya?s development platform 8090 just raised $135 million, and he?s using it to go after a $4 trillion market: the software maintenance, migration, and middleware spending that?s currently ?pure waste? for enterprises.

Find out why the All-In Podcast bestie says every company should use AI to build custom software the way that Google, Facebook, and Meta already do, then go inside Software Factory, the ?system on a chip? organizational model, and why Chamath believes AI will allow every human on Earth to start their own company.

Guest:

Chamath on X: https://x.com/chamath

8090: https://www.8090.ai/

Learn With Me on Substack: https://chamath.substack.com/p/learn-with-me

Drink With Me: https://www.drinkwithme.com/age-verify.html

All-In Podcast: https://allin.com/

Social Capital: https://www.socialcapital.com/

Relevant Links:

8090 Series A announcement: https://x.com/chamath/status/2071571183665881515

Salesforce Ventures: https://salesforceventures.com/

Craft Ventures: https://www.craftventures.com/

The Production Board: https://www.tpb.co/

WNDR: https://www.wndr.vc/

LAUNCH: https://www.launch.co

Coatue Management: https://www.coatue.com/

Jack Dorsey: ?From Hierarchy to Intelligence?: https://block.xyz/inside/from-hierarchy-to-intelligence

Thomas Keller?s The French Laundry: https://thomaskeller.com/tfl/

Timestamps:

0:00 It's TWiST All-Star Summer!

0:44 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations ? interviews, meetings, calls ? you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at https://Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!

3:21 Chamath's origin story

7:54 Tom Sawyer entrepreneurship

11:29 Shopify - Turn those What If's into sales with the ecommerce platform powering millions of businesses. Sign up for your $1-per-month trial today at https://shopify.com/twist

16:25 The $5 trillion software market

21:06 LinkedIn Jobs - Hire right, the first time. Post your first job and get $100 off towards your job post at https://LinkedIn.com/twist

25:00 Building "a co-founder for every human"

31:51 Northwest Registered Agent - Get more when you start your business with Northwest. In 10 clicks and 10 minutes, you can form your company and walk away with a real business identity ? Learn more at https://northwestregisteredagent.com/twist

35:00 How product development lost its way

45:00 Regulated industries are the beachhead

50:00 Raising the $135M Series A

55:00 8090's "System on a Chip" model

1:04:44 What to tell your kids about AI

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Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/

Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland

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Today?s show:

F1 teams spend up to a third of their budgets on aerodynamics, often utilizing wind tunnels to simulate what happens on the track.

But Lyall Davenport of SKN Systems created a sensor-embedded tape that sticks directly to race cars as they drive around the real world, generating 420M data points per hour. And it comes in at roughly 95% less cost than running a full simulator.

Hear about how Lyall?s background in racing helped him develop the concept, plans to expand from motorsports to drones and defense, and his experiences going through Jason?s various programs.

PLUS OpenAI?s new models are so good, you can?t use them. Why Apple?s Vision Pro chief defected to OpenAI (and why their laptops and devices are getting more expensive). A look at the world?s most annoying data center in Sterling, Virginia. And Jason remembers iconic and influential tech journalist Om Malik.

Guest:

Lyall Davenport: https://x.com/Lyalldavenport

SKN Systems: https://www.skn.systems/

Timestamps:

0:00 How SKN uses tape to generate aerodynamic data

4:04 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations ? interviews, meetings, calls ? you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at https://Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!

6:17 How SKN uses tape to generate aerodynamic data

9:55 Sentry - Your team should be focused on shipping features ? not chasing down bugs. New users can get $240 in free credits when they go to https://sentry.io/twist and use the code TWIST

17:20 F1 teams are worth HOW MUCH?

19:42 Northwest Registered Agent: Get more when you start your business with Northwest. In 10 clicks and 10 minutes, you can form your company and walk away with a real business identity ? Learn more at https://northwestregisteredagent.com/twist

20:35 Future markets beyond motorsports

30:03 DigitalOcean - Want to see what building on a true AI-native platform looks like? Head to https://do.co/twist to start building on DigitalOcean's AI-Native Cloud today ? and cut your AI workload costs by up to 50%.

32:45 GPT-5.6 is banned for now

43:46 Vision Pro chief makes for the exit

51:24 Apple raises their prices

56:05 The data center you're allowed to hate

1:06:04 Zuck's new prediction market app

1:08:42 RIP Om Malik (1966-2026)

1:19:50 Streaming and camera recommendations

1:28:06 All about eFoiling

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Follow Lon:

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X: https://twitter.com/Jason

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis

Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/

Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland

Check out Jason?s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis

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This Week In Startups is made possible by:

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Today?s show:

Jason sits down with Brynn Putnam, CEO and founder of Board, to learn more about her company?s tabletop gaming console. The pair talks about how to raise capital for yet-to-launch hardware projects, the screen-time debate, and how Board is approaching building or buying IP for its family-friendly games. Next, Alex got Heremus?s AJ Piplica on the horn to chat hypersonic, autonomous jets. The startup?s technology bridges the gap between rockets and airplanes, and may represent the future of warfare, yes, but also fast freight!

Guest Links:

Brynn Putnam https://x.com/BrynnPutnam

Board https://board.fun/

Board Series A announcement https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/02/board-the-new-game-startup-from-mirror-founder-brynn-putnam-raises-20m-has-already-sold-thousands/

Mirror https://www.lululemonstudio.com/

AJ Piplica https://x.com/AJ_Piplica

Heremus https://www.hermeus.com/

Heremus Series C announcement https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hermeus-reaches-1-billion-valuation-with-350-million-raise-to-build-todays-fastest-aircraft-for-the-american-warfighter-302735273.html

Timestamps:

0:00 Board's Brynn Putnam joins the show

2:54 Board's proprietary AI software stack

6:43 Why Board manufactures in Mexico (not China)

9:21 LinkedIn: Thanks to our partners at LinkedIn! Post your job for free at https://linkedIn.com/twist then promote it to get access to LinkedIn Jobs' new AI assistant.

9:42 How to raise a Seed round for hardware without a finished product

15:26 Brynn's daughter and the mermaid example

17:09 Can Board limit screen time fears?

18:47 Northwest Registered Agent: Get more when you start your business with Northwest. In 10 clicks and 10 minutes, you can form your company and walk away with a real business identity ? Learn more at https://northwestregisteredagent.com/twist

22:54 Selling the first 10,000 units

28:38 Deel - Founders scale faster on Deel. Set up payroll for any country in minutes, hire anyone anywhere, get visas handled fast, and get back to building. Visit https://deel.com/twist to learn more.

29:42 Why Board is steering away from simple ports toward native IP experiences

35:32 Hermeus's AJ Piplica joins the show

35:32 What is Dark Horse?

43:48 Commercial applications: Cargo, organs, flowers, and trans-Atlantic in 90 minutes

47:47 Commercial applications: Cargo, organs, flowers, and trans-Atlantic in 90 minutes

57:00 Dark Horse range and the "reusable first stage" analogy

58:42 Dark Horse range and the "reusable first stage" analogy

1:02:42 $350M Series C led by Khosla; total funding now exceeds $500M

1:03:39 The SpaceX model: get customers to fund your R&D

1:07:47 Closing: the American Dynamism pitch

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Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/

Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland

Check out Jason?s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis

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Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com

This Week In Startups is made possible by:Agree - https://agree.comQuo - https://quo.com/TWiSTSuperhuman - https://superhuman.comToday?s show:In this double-header, Jason and Lon chat with Louis Phillips, founder of the gamified running app INTVL, which turns a quick job around the block into a worldwide turf war competition. Find out how he grew the app to over 1 million downloads without any paid ads, just making videos from his home office.PLUS Alex sits down with Alice Zhang, CEO of Verge Labs, which pivoted from making drugs to building the AI infrastructure that helps pharma companies develop their own treatments. Find out how they accumulated one of the world?s largest proprietary brain datasets and why brain tissue is the ?LiDAR of neuroscience.?Guests:INTVL: https://www.intvl.com.au/INTVL on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/intvl.appLouis Phillips on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/louisphillips12Verge Labs: https://vergelabs.com/Alice Zhang on X: https://x.com/AliceXinliZhangRelevant LinksMeta?s Ad Library: https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/Strava: https://www.strava.com/Pokémon Go: https://pokemongo.com/Fitbod: https://fitbod.me/Tonebase: https://www.tonebase.co/Calm: https://www.calm.com/Hamilton Island official site: https://www.hamiltonisland.com.au/?Mr. Inbetween? trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EooRG3QhQOYArticle: ?Verge Genomics Rebrands as Verge Labs?: https://trial.medpath.com/news/verge-genomics-rebrands-as-verge-labs-following-als-drug-trial-failure-pivots-to-ai-driven-target-discoveryEli Lilly: https://www.lilly.com/Chai Discovery: https://www.chaidiscovery.com/Noetik: https://www.noetik.ai/Tempus: https://www.tempus.com/Timestamps:0:00 Louis on building in Melbourne, Australia

7:44 Why INTVL ignores how fast you run

9:59 Agree - Stop chasing invoices at https://agree.com and tell them Jason sent you to get 50% off for life!

15:52 Using gamification for good

19:10 Powering INTVL's impressive growth

19:55 Quo (formerly OpenPhone) - Quo gives you a clean, modern way to handle every customer call, text, and thread all in one place. Try it free at https://quo.com/TWiST

26:16 The future of TWiST Australia

27:14 Will AI ever cure cancer?

27:54 Inside Verge's rebrand

30:31 Superhuman - Get AI that works where you work. Unlock your Superhuman potential at https://superhuman.com

32:01 Brain tissue as "ground truth"

36:01 Why brain tissue is so valuable as data

43:52 Verge's Eli Lilly partnership

51:34 "You're going to tell me when I'm going to die"

56:11 How AI could impact drug prices

58:19 Clinical trial FAILS and how to move onSubscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.comCheck out the TWIST500: https://www.twist500.comSubscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcpFollow Lon:X: https://x.com/lonsFollow Alex:X: https://x.com/alexLinkedIn: ?https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelmFollow Jason:X: https://twitter.com/JasonLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanisCheck out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarlandCheck out Jason?s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanisFollow TWiST:Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartupsYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekinInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartupsTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartupsSubstack: https://twistartups.substack.com

This Week In Startups is made possible by:

Deel - deel.com/twist

LinkedIn - linkedIn.com/twist

Northwest Registered Agent - northwestregisteredagent.com/twistPlaud - https://Plaud.ai/twist

Today?s show:

Anthropic stabbed Cursor in the back. Then SpaceX swooped in with $60 billion. Today, TWiST connects the dots on the biggest deal in AI since the Microsoft-OpenAI partnership, and why it's a warning sign for every startup building on top of a frontier model. Jason is joined by Bling Capital?s Ben Ling, Banana Capital?s Turner Novak, and co-host Alex to go deep on the future of coding models, the current golden age of venture liquidity, OpenAI?s financials, and the ?Four Ds? of venture investing. The show closes with a tribute to Josh Baer, the founder of Capital Factory.

Guest Links:

Ben Ling https://x.com/bling0?lang=en

Bling Capital https://www.blingcap.com/

Turner Novak https://x.com/TurnerNovak

Banana Capital https://www.bananacapital.vc/

Show Links:

Hanover Park https://www.hanoverpark.com/

SpaceX buys Cursor https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/16/spacex-spcx-cursor-acquisition-ipo.html

Cursor Composer 2.5 https://cursor.com/blog/composer-2-5

OpenAI financials source https://www.wheresyoured.at/exclusive-openai-financials/

AMD?s new deskside data center https://www.amd.com/en/products/processors/desktops/ryzen/ryzen-ai-halo.html

Perplexity Model Council https://www.perplexity.ai/hub/blog/introducing-model-council

Timestamps:

0:00 Guest introductions

1:15 Guest introductions

2:43 SpaceX acquires Cursor for $60B

6:13 The golden era of M&A

9:13 Northwest Registered Agent: Get more when you start your business with Northwest. In 10 clicks and 10 minutes, you can form your company and walk away with a real business identity ? Learn more at https://northwestregisteredagent.com/twist

12:04 Cursor's negative gross margins & the compute problem

13:22 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations ? interviews, meetings, calls ? you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at https://Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!

15:04 Rolling your own model: When does it make sense?

19:35 LinkedIn: Thanks to our partners at LinkedIn! Post your job for free at https://linkedIn.com/twist then promote it to get access to LinkedIn Jobs' new AI assistant.

22:53 The "headless product" thesis

28:31 Deel: Founders scale faster on Deel. Set up payroll for any country in minutes, hire anyone anywhere, get visas handled fast, and get back to building. Visit https://deel.com/twist to learn more.

34:22 OpenAI financials leaked: $13B revenue, $38.5B net loss

40:13 Where does AI value accumulate?

45:34 Portfolio Spotlight: Hanover Park

48:37 Seed stage graduation rates have fallen from 50% to 25%

54:59 The four Ds of venture: Deal flow, Decisions, Doubling down, Distributions

1:06:36 How to find 'undiscovered gems'

1:30:59 Snap Specs AR glasses: $2,195, and a bit chunky

1:39:29 Tribute to Joshua Baer, Capital Factory's founder

Subscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.com

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Follow Lon:

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Follow Alex:

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LinkedIn: ?https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelm

Follow Jason:

X: https://twitter.com/Jason

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis

Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/

Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland

Check out Jason?s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis

Follow TWiST:

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Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com

This Week In Startups is made possible by:

Every.io - visit every.io

Sentry.io - sentry.io/twist

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Today?s show:

The next SpaceX won't be building rockets; it'll build the first hotel on the Moon. Today on TWiST, GRU Space founder Skyler Chan brings a brick made from lunar soil into the studio and lays out a plan to manufacture on the Moon as early as next year. We get into the science, the business model, and the regulatory land-grab ahead!

Then, the US government forces Anthropic to pull Fable 5 and Mythos 5. Jason and Lon unpack what it means when a single AI model can vanish overnight, and the US government's emergency order.

Stick around for the winner (or winners?!) of the $5,000 AI podcast-companion bounty!

Timestamps:

0:00 Knicks playoff run, San Antonio & Texas BBQ (Black's vs. Terry Black's)

8:23 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations ? interviews, meetings, calls ? you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at https://Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!

9:52 Guest intro: Skyler Chan, GRU Space ? and the lunar-soil brick

10:29 Every.io - For all of your incorporation, banking, payroll, benefits, accounting, taxes or other back-office administration needs, visit https://every.io

12:14 Why the next SpaceX builds habitats, not rockets

15:18 NASA's $20B moon-base signal & the TRL contracting path

16:13 Business model: from construction contractor to owning lunar land

18:06 Building the hotel robotically + $1M refundable deposits

20:00 Sentry - Your team should be focused on shipping features ? not chasing down bugs. New users can get $240 in free credits when they go to https://sentry.io/twist and use the code TWIST

31:09 Vanta - Get $1000 off your SOC 2 at https://www.vanta.com/twist

39:28 News: US government blocks Anthropic's Fable 5 & Mythos 5

41:34 The politics: Hegseth, Sacks, Jassy & the "conspiracy" angle

1:09:39 Why no single model dependency is safe (multi-model harnesses)

1:18:47 Bounty results: MySidecast wins $3,000

1:19:07 Honorable mentions: Couchverse (Lemon Slice) & Convalenz

1:29:44 Next bounty: the Annotated app

? Links & Resources Mentioned:

Guest & company

Skyler Chan: Founder, GRU Space ? https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/galactic-resource-utilization-space-inc-gru-space

GRU Space (Galactic Resource Utilization): YC startup building lunar-regolith bricks and a robotic Moon hotel ? https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/galactic-resource-utilization-space-inc-gru-space

GRU Space lunar hotel bookings ? https://payloadspace.com/gru-space-opens-bookings-for-planned-lunar-hotel/

?? About the Guest:

Skyler Chan is the founder of GRU Space (Galactic Resource Utilization), a Y Combinator?backed startup developing a payload factory that manufactures bricks from lunar regolith to build the first robotic hotel on the Moon.

Follow GRU Space ? https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/galactic-resource-utilization-space-inc-gru-space

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Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland

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After watching Elon build out his rocket (and AI) company over the past 20 years, Jason celebrates the SpaceX IPO on a new TWiST. He explains why some investments are evaluated based on earnings and current numbers, while other stocks are bets on expensive visions for the future, and why SpaceX why likely pay off across multiple time horizons.

PLUS Polsia solo founder Ben Cera is back with guidance for founders on creating a ?Purple Cow?: a unique experience that makes their brand memorable.

Guest:

Ben Cera on X: https://x.com/Bencera

Polsia: https://polsia.com/

Polsia on X: https://x.com/polsia

Ben on TWiST E2256 (Feb 2026): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCce8e02Isw

Relevant Links:

SpaceX: https://www.spacex.com/

SPCX on Yahoo Finance: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/SPCX/

Starlink: https://www.starlink.com/

Planet Labs: https://www.planet.com/

Palantir: https://www.palantir.com/

Valor Equity Partners: https://www.valorep.com/

Seth Godin?s ?Purple Cow? on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Purple-Cow-New-Transform-Remarkable/dp/1591843170

Uber Ice Cream stunt article: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ubers-brilliant-marketing-stunt-hail-195946535.html

Hillsborough Flintstones House article: https://www.sfgate.com/travel/article/The-Flintstone-House-is-now-for-rent-on-Airbnb-10420107.php

?19 Hours Inside the Airbnb X-Mansion? article: https://www.theringer.com/2024/05/29/pop-culture/x-mansion-airbnb-x-men-icons-experience

Was The Pepsi Challenge based on LIES? https://www.historyoasis.com/post/the-pepsi-challenge

CloudKitchens: https://cloudkitchens.com/

Cluely: https://cluely.com/

Timestamps:

0:00 SpaceX IPO details

2:12 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations ? interviews, meetings, calls ? you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at https://Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!

7:21 The voting vs. weighing investment framework

9:41 Pilot: Focus on your product, let Pilot handle your bookkeeping. Pilot provides the most reliable accounting, CFO, and tax services for startups and small businesses. Head to https://pilot.com/twist and get $1,200 off your first year.

19:53 Agree - Stop chasing invoices at https://agree.com and tell them Jason sent you to get 50% off for life!

22:25 The media's SpaceX criticisms and "hot takes"

23:54 Ben Cera of Polsia is back

26:53 Why Jason says no to a free tier

29:10 IM8 Health: Start feeling like your best self every day. Go to https://IM8health.com/twist and use the code TWiST to get a free welcome kit, five free travel sachets, and 10% off your order.

34:27 The wisdom of Seth Godin's "Purple Cow"

50:37 The "Pepsi Challenge" model

1:05:45 Lon got a dog, Jason got routers

1:10:37 The YouTuber to movie theater pipeline

1:15:20 Jason's new favorite travel bag

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Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland

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Two days before SpaceX launches the largest IPO in history at a flat $135/share, our VC roundtable drops a scorcher: The top 1% of seed deals might actually be underpriced. Plus: the "Sequoia scam" dual-tranche controversy, tokens-for-equity deals, and whether Claude Fable 5 is a true step function.

Tomasz Tunguz (Theory Ventures), Michael Downing (Castalia Capital), and Paige Doherty (Behind Genius Ventures) join Alex to go deep on Seed investing, startup economics, AI spend, and the impact of smarter AI on the founder journey.

Guest Links:

Tomasz Tunguz: https://x.com/ttunguz

Theory Ventures: https://theoryvc.com/

Michael Downing: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeldowning/

Castalia Capital: https://castalia.capital/

Paige Doherty: https://x.com/paigefinnn

Behind Genius Ventures: https://www.behindgeniusventures.com

Show Links:

Anthropic?s IPO announcement: https://www.anthropic.com/news/confidential-draft-s1-sec

OpenAI?s IPO announcement: https://openai.com/index/openai-submits-confidential-s-1/

Bending Spoons F-1 filing: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/2004711/000110465926071170/tm2613674-7_f1.htm

SpaceX IPO filing: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1181412/000162828026040364/spaceexplorationtechnologib.htm

Brendan Foody?s post on Sequoia: https://x.com/BrendanFoody/status/2063470286515683759

Claude Fable 5: https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-fable-5-mythos-5

OpenRouter data on Chinese models: https://openrouter.ai/rankings?view=day

Saronic: https://www.saronic.com/

MotherDuck: https://motherduck.com/

Nox Metals: https://noxmetals.co/

Timestamps:

0:00 Tomasz Tunguz, Michael Downing & Paige Doherty join

2:07 The SpaceX IPO and the IPO window

4:22 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations ? interviews, meetings, calls ? you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at https://Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!

6:30 The new bar: 10x growth (not 3x) to raise a great Series A

8:46 Net-new AI budgets

9:46 Squarespace: Turn your idea into a beautiful website! Go to https://www.squarespace.com/twist for a free trial. When you're ready to launch, use offer code TWIST to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

11:09 How some founders are outgrowing venture capital

11:44 The power pendulum swings back to founders

12:46 SpaceX vs. OpenAI vs. Anthropic: Which IPO is most enticing?

19:53 Deel - Founders scale faster on Deel. Set up payroll for any country in minutes, hire anyone anywhere, get visas handled fast, and get back to building. Visit https://deel.com/twist to learn more.

26:07 Tokens-for-equity, GPU-hours-for-equity & the financialization of compute

28:35 Founders airing VC dirty laundry (napping VCs included)

29:56 Netsuite - The business landscape is very chaotic right now. That's why you need NetSuite, by Oracle. Get the free business guide Demystifying AI at https://Netsuite.com/TWiST

36:38 Claude Fable 5 first impressions: pricing, benchmarks & orchestration

45:42 Where value accrues: application layer vs. models vs. private data

1:00:06 Nationalization of AI labs: Bernie Sanders, Sam Altman & Trump agree?!

1:01:25 Portfolio spotlights: Saronic, MotherDuck, and Nox Metals

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Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland

Check out Jason?s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis

The AI Tutor That Makes Kids Actually Think | E2298

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Today?s show:

*Schools teach kids to memorize formulas. AI helps them skip thinking entirely. Brilliant founder Sue Khim joins TWiST to tell us how her new AI tutor, Koji, uses the Socratic Method to help students solve complex problems on their own. Find out why she says ?People aren?t anti-AI. They?re anti-being replaced and anti-slop.?

PLUS Jason?s take on the VC horror stories going around X? and his own anecdote about the tenacity and passion of legendary investor John Doerr.

Guest:

Sue Khim on X: https://x.com/suekhim

Brilliant: https://brilliant.org/

Viral Koji launch video: https://x.com/suekhim/status/2060378988606878147

Relevant Links:

Viral Greg Isenberg post about VCs: https://x.com/gregisenberg/status/2061794787825479818

Travis Kalanick?s story: https://x.com/travisk/status/2062224472426365045

Matthew Prince?s stories: https://x.com/eastdakota/status/2062860530360959273

John Doerr on X: https://x.com/johndoerr

Roelof Botha on X: https://x.com/roelofbotha

Michael Moritz on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelmoritz/

Mohr Davidow Ventures: https://mdv.com/

Jason?s book ?Angel: How to Invest in Technology Startups?: https://www.amazon.com/Angel-Invest-Technology-Startups-Timeless-Investor/dp/0062560700

Timestamps:

0:00 Sue Khim's Alltuition origin story

1:41 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations ? interviews, meetings, calls ? you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at https://Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!

4:10 Brilliant: from launch to product market pull

10:46 Northwest Registered Agent - Get more when you start your business with Northwest. In 10 clicks and 10 minutes, you can form your company and walk away with a real business identity ? Learn more at https://northwestregisteredagent.com/twist

15:08 Pricing against tutors, not apps

19:25 LinkedIn Jobs - Hire right, the first time. Post your first job and get $100 off towards your job post at https://LinkedIn.com/twist

21:22 Koji demo

24:11 Keeping Brilliant local while expanding

30:22 Shopify - Turn those What Ifs into sales with the e-commerce platform powering millions of businesses. Sign up for your $1-per-month trial today at https://shopify.com/twist

40:10 Every founder has a VC horror story

44:33 John Doerr went the extra mile to hear JCal's pitch

52:55 The LAUNCH investment strategy

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Today?s show:

Anthropic wrote a blog post calling for a global AI slowdown. Meanwhile, Sen. Bernie Sanders wants the government to seize 50% of every major AI company?s stock. Find out why JCal is reconsidering universal basic (or even high!) income policies, and why he thinks the 2028 presidential election will likely come down to AI policies.

PLUS a live ComfyUI demo from founder Yoland Yan. Find out why the free-to-use open-source node-based platform has become a crucial part of millions of designers? and VFX experts? workflows, and how their tool has been used to create everything from ?The Wizard of Oz? at the Vegas Sphere to those viral Coca-Cola holiday ads.

Guest

Yoland Yan: http://x.com/yoland_yan

ComfyUI: https://comfy.org/

AI Models and Tools

Ideogram 4.0: https://ideogram.ai/models/4.0/

Stable Diffusion: https://stability.ai/

LTX Video: https://github.com/Lightricks/LTX-Video

LoRa: https://huggingface.co/docs/diffusers/training/lora

Google Veo: https://deepmind.google/models/veo/

Relevant Links:

Anthropic: ?When AI Builds Itself?: https://www.anthropic.com/institute/recursive-self-improvement

Bernie Sanders: ?The Public Should Own Half of the Big AI Companies?: https://www.sanders.senate.gov/op-eds/the-public-should-own-half-of-the-big-a-i-companies/

Bloomberg: ?Sam Altman-Backed Group Completes Largest US Study on Basic Income?: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-07-22/ubi-study-backed-by-openai-s-sam-altman-bolsters-support-for-basic-income

Timestamps:

0:00 Guest 1: Yoland Yan, ComfyUI ? live demo intro

2:06 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations ? interviews, meetings, calls ? you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at https://Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!

4:34 Guest 1: Yoland Yan, ComfyUI ? live demo intro

9:47 Grasshopper Bank - Time is money. Don't waste either. Go to https://grasshopper.bank/twist and get an exclusive $500 cash bonus just for opening an account.

20:05 Vanta - Get $1000 off your SOC 2 at https://www.vanta.com/twist

22:24 What is Outpainting?

30:01 Render - Find out why 5 million developers are already using the all-in-one cloud platform, Render. Go to https://render.com/twist and apply for the Render Startup Program to get $500-$100,000 in free credits, depending on your stage and backers.

32:13 Jason's insider sales team advice

38:42 LA mayoral race: Bass vs. Pratt

42:25 Anthropic wants AI to slow down?

48:45 Will Sen. Sanders' argument resonate with the public?

59:39 Why 2028 will be the AI jobs election

1:05:32 Brian Chesky's new AI lab

1:15:21 Jason's "Mandalorian and Grogu" review

1:18:53 YouTubers take over the box office

1:24:16 Dean Potter vs. Alex Honnold

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Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/

Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland

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Today?s show:

Want to get to space? Several launch companies can help you. SpaceX, Rocket Lab, the Russians, the list goes on. But what about once you make it upstairs, then what? Impulse Space CEO and CTO Tom Mueller is building the next stage of our orbital economy. With its Mira and Helios spacecraft, we?ll soon be able to take mass from lower orbits to higher orbits, or even to the Moon, with ease.

Meanwhile, venture capitalists are enamored with the idea of humanoid robots ? robots share our shape, our work environment, and even our tools. But startups like Dusty Robotics are taking a different tack; instead of building human-shaped robots, Dusty has built a small, wheeled 'bot that can mark out building sites quickly and accurately. And it?s doing more revenue than all humanoid robotics companies combined, I reckon. Dusty?s CEO, Dr. Tessa Lau, joins Alex to go deep on purpose-built robots in today?s build-crazy market.

Timestamps:

0:00 Blue Origin, and why fixing things in orbit is hard

2:19 What Mira is and what it does

4:35 Why was the commercial demand for Mira softer than expected

5:20 Space Force demand and the GEO-capable Mira

7:08 Helios: a "rocket on top of a rocket."

10:10 Sentry - Your team should be focused on shipping features ? not chasing down bugs. New users can get $240 in free credits when they go to https://sentry.io/twist and use the code TWIST

11:35 How Helios beats Falcon Heavy on price ($25M)

13:35 Reusability, in-orbit refueling, and propellant depots

15:38 Landers, the Moon base, and "Mega Helios."

18:52 NSSL and the politics of flying government payloads

20:16 Every.io - For all of your incorporation, banking, payroll, benefits, accounting, taxes or other back-office administration needs, visit https://every.io

20:51 Why the Moon matters: megastructures and data centers in space

25:09 The space talent market and the SpaceX "mafia."

30:16 Northwest Registered Agent: Get more when you start your business with Northwest. In 10 clicks and 10 minutes, you can form your company and walk away with a real business identity ? Learn more at https://northwestregisteredagent.com/twist

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Thank you to our partners:

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Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland

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Today?s show:

Cortical Labs is the world?s first company selling biological computers. Their CL1 fuses lab-grown human neurons (derived from stem cells, not actual folks) with silicon hardware to create Synthetic Biological Intelligence (SBI).

Founder Dr. Hon Weng Chong walks us through how the system works and why neurons are more efficient than GPUs at reinforcement learning. (Also? is this computer alive?)

PLUS Pyka co-founder and CEO Michael Norcia explains the various uses for his autonomous aircraft, from crop-spraying drones in Brazil to a a hybrid-electric defense UAV for the military.

Guests:

Cortical Labs: ****https://corticallabs.com/

Dr. Hon Weng Chong on X: https://x.com/dr1337

Pyka: https://www.flypyka.com/

Pyka on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/flypyka/?hl=en

Further Reading:

2022 Pong paper in Neuron: https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(22)00806-6

2017 Paper: ?Attention is All You Need?; https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.03762

The ?Barista Test? for Artificial Intelligence: Chris Rourk: https://medium.com/predict/the-turing-test-is-so-last-century-the-barista-test-for-artificial-general-intelligence-faf91034fa8c

Notable Links:

Playing ?DOOM? on CL1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRV8fSw6HaE

DayOne Data Center: https://dayonedc.com/

NeurIPS 2026 Conference: https://neurips.cc/

Neuralink: https://neuralink.com/

CliniCloud Digital Stethoscope and Thermometer: https://www.design-industry.com.au/clinicloud

Air Force Research Laboratory (AFWERX): https://afwerx.com/

Joby Aviation: https://www.jobyaviation.com/

Prime Movers Lab: https://www.primemoverslab.com/

Timestamps:

0:00 What is "biological computing"?

2:49 Cortical's new $30 million raise

4:15 The world's first biological data center

9:48 Deel - Founders scale faster on Deel. Set up payroll for any country in minutes, hire anyone anywhere, get visas handled fast, and get back to building. Visit https://deel.com/twist to learn more.

10:51 Biological computers have a learning advantage

19:43 Quo (formerly OpenPhone) - Quo gives you a clean, modern way to handle every customer call, text, and thread all in one place. Try it free at https://quo.com/TWiST

29:15 LinkedIn Jobs - Hire right, the first time. Post your first job and get $100 off towards your job post at https://LinkedIn.com/twist

38:46 From paper airplanes to Group 4 UAVs

52:20 Introducing the DropShip defense drone

58:28 How regulations block US drones

1:00:40 Why Pyka builds everything in-house

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Today?s show:

Jason breaks down the real math behind raising a seed round. Here?s the funnel: contact 150 firms, get 50 first meetings, convert 2o into second meetings, and close 2 term sheets.

PLUS Jason responds to viewer questions about why hardware is no longer a dirty word for investors, how to differentiate your startup from frontier-model companies like OpenAI, even when they?re in your niche. Plus a pitch for ?Founder Community College,? and anecdotes from Lon?s European odyssey.

Thanks for the Questions:

Richard Corral: CEO of Quanto: https://quanto.co/

ØnProtons on X: https://x.com/0nProtons

SergeDawg on X: https://x.com/sergedawg

Mahika Golani

Peridot: https://www.tryperidot.com/

Shawn Sully on X: https://x.com/aroogle

Programs and Accelerators Mentioned:

Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com/

Techstars: https://www.techstars.com/

Antler: https://www.antler.co/

PearX: https://pear.vc/pearx/

Sequoia ARC: https://www.sequoiacap.com/arc/

Kauffman Fellows: https://www.kauffmanfellows.org/

Companies and Startups Referenced:

Whoop: https://www.whoop.com/

Knightscope: https://knightscope.com/

Eight Sleep: https://www.eightsleep.com/

Cafe X: https://www.cafexapp.com/

Media Referenced:

New Yorker Sam Altman profile: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/04/13/sam-altman-may-control-our-future-can-he-be-trusted

Off-Duty Recommendations

Terra Kaffe Demi compact automatic espresso machine: https://www.terrakaffe.com/products/tk-demi

Osteria Pastella (Florence, Italy): https://www.osteriapastella.it/

Timestamps:

0:00 Inside the TWiST private group chat

3:25 How to react when an investor says your "too early."

6:50 The ultimate seed round funnel

8:48 Jason's new Associate in Training program

10:09 Grasshopper Bank - Time is money. Don't waste either. Go to https://grasshopper.bank/twist and get an exclusive $500 cash bonus just for opening an account.

18:28 How have the metrics for early-stage companies changed?

20:20 LinkedIn Jobs - Hire right, the first time. Post your first job and get $100 off towards your job post at https://LinkedIn.com/twist

22:34 TWiST Bounties update

23:43 Competing against frontier labs

30:03 What signals real investor-founder alignment?

30:14 Northwest Registered Agent - Get more when you start your business with Northwest. In 10 clicks and 10 minutes, you can form your company and walk away with a real business identity ? Learn more at https://northwestregisteredagent.com/twist

36:07 A crash course in Bay Area startup culture

40:15 Automatons-as-a-Service (AaaS)

42:29 Who in Silicon Valley does Jason really not like?

49:59 Museum Etiquette with Lon Harris

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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis

Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/

Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland

Check out Jason?s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis

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This Week In Startups is made possible by:

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Today?s show:

The "Ryanair of drone delivery" just raised $50 million and plans to bring its technology from Europe to the United States. Manna founder Bobby Healy explains to TWiST how his Dublin-based company completed 300,000 deliveries while some rivals are still publishing blog posts, and why low-cost airline economics will decide who wins the autonomous skies.

Sticking to the drone theme, TWiST welcomed Theseus co-founder Ian Laffey, who called in from Kyiv to tell us about his company?s drone guidance system. It runs off a simple camera and Google Maps. The technology could rewrite the modern, GPS-jammed battlefield, and bring more firepower to smaller nations fending off larger foes.

Guest Links:

Manna https://www.manna.aero

Bobby Healy https://www.linkedin.com/in/bhealy/

Manna funding announcement https://www.manna.aero/blog/series-b

Theseus https://www.theseus.us/

Ian Laffey https://www.linkedin.com/in/ilaffey2/

Most recent Theseus funding announcement https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/17/defense-tech-theseus-landed-y-combinator-the-us-special-forces-and-4-3m-from-a-tweet/

The tweet that kickstarted Theseus: https://x.com/ilaffey2/status/1759353732075294766

Timestamps:

0:00 Bobby Healy of Manna joins TWiST

1:41 How a Manna base works: drones migrate around the city like Waymos

7:18 Battle-hardened in Irish weather: 97% uptime in wind and rain

8:52 Margin-positive economics & the path to $0.20 per delivery

9:25 Northwest Registered Agent: Get more when you start your business with Northwest. In 10 clicks and 10 minutes, you can form your company and walk away with a real business identity ? Learn more at https://northwestregisteredagent.com/twist

12:32 $50M Series B vs competitors raising $600?800M

19:51 Deel - Founders scale faster on Deel. Set up payroll for any country in minutes, hire anyone anywhere, get visas handled fast, and get back to building. Visit https://deel.com/twist to learn more.

22:53 The peer-to-peer drone future and hyper-local commerce

25:46 Growing from 170 to 570 people and moving manufacturing to Oklahoma

28:43 Ian Laffey of Theseus joins TWIST

29:57 Render: Find out why 5 million developers are already using the all-in-one cloud platform, Render. Go to https://render.com/twist and apply for the Render Startup Program to get $500-$100,000 in free credits, depending on your stage and backers.

30:58 Inside Ukraine's drone industry: front-line iteration and free-market speed

33:55 How GPS gets jammed across the spectrum

35:10 Theseus's approach: cameras + satellite maps + ML

37:04 The product: Raspberry Pi, SD card, camera ? pretending to be GPS

49:02 Ukraine: 6?8M drones a year. The US: 300K over two years.

51:17 Are US drone primes actually reconstituting the supply chain?

58:22 Y Combinator as a defense tech accelerator

59:40 "Pick an issue and start working as hard as you can towards it"

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X: https://x.com/alex

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X: https://twitter.com/Jason

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis

Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/

Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland

Check out Jason?s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis

Follow TWiST:

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This Week In Startups is made possible by:

Every.io https://every.io

Shopify https://shopify.com/twist

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Plaud https://Plaud.ai/twist

Today?s show:

Startups like Divergent Technologies are producing components and aircraft for the military through new systems that are better, faster, and cheaper than conventional methods. CEO and co-founder Lukas Czinger stops by TWiST to share the company?s vertically integrated, AI-driven manufacturing platform and how he transitioned from hypercar parts to working directly with the Pentagon on autonomous aircraft.

Plus, 50 million Americans are on antidepressants, and it?s not necessarily the right treatment for all of them. Outro Health co-founders Brandon Goode and Dr. Mark Horowitz share their hyperbolic tapering method, which helps patients get off drugs like Zoloft and Prozac without suffering through traumatic and potentially dangerous side effects.

Guests

Lukas Czinger: https://x.com/lukasczinger

Divergent Technologies: https://www.divergent3d.com

Czinger Vehicles: https://www.czinger.com/

Brandon Goode: https://www.linkedin.com/in/goodebrandon/

Dr. Mark Horowitz: https://x.com/markhoro

Outro Health: https://outro.com

Timestamps:

0:00 Divergent shifted from hypercar development to 3D printing all kinds of components

1:33 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations ? interviews, meetings, calls ? you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at https://Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!

4:10 How 3D printing has exponentially improved

8:18 Making military components faster, better, and cheaper

9:58 Every.io - For all of your incorporation, banking, payroll, benefits, accounting, taxes or other back-office administration needs, visit https://every.io

11:00 How Divergent caught the Pentagon's attention

19:51 Shopify - Turn those What Ifs into sales with the ecommerce platform powering millions of businesses. Sign up for your $1-per-month trial today at https://shopify.com/twist

25:29 Why Outro Health helps patients taper off SSRIs

30:06 Render - Find out why 5 million developers are already using the all-in-one cloud platform, Render. Go to https://render.com/twist and apply for the Render Startup Program to get $500-$100,000 in free credits, depending on your stage and backers.

36:37 Is depression caused by a "chemical imbalance"?

46:37 Understanding the hyperbolic tapering method

58:32 How Outro makes money

1:10:01 Leaked Meta layoff audio

1:13:41 Cloudflare CEO drops "measurer" roles

1:18:16 CrowdHealth - CrowdHealth lets you ditch the bureaucracy with a peer-to-peer funding platform for your healthcare. Get started for $99 per month for your first three months by using the code TWIST at https://JoinCrowdHealth.com/twist.

1:19:17 Why Trump canceled his AI executive order

1:28:08 Polymarket sharps on Russia vs. Ukraine, SpaceX ticker symbol

1:33:34 Luel vs. Kled update: Is this nepotism at work?

1:37:02 Chris Nolan doesn't have a smartphone

1:43:04 Jason's favorite new espresso machine

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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis

Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/

Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland

Check out Jason?s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis

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This Week In Startups is made possible by:

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Why raise $200 million if you are already profitable? That?s the question Jason and Alex put to Mercury?s founder and CEO, Immad Akhund, after the entrepreneur raised another massive round for his upstart, technology-friendly bank. TWiST then welcomed Kled founder Avi Patel to discuss the startup he considers a clear ripoff of his own company. Jason gavels in verdicts on all parties involved, including Y Combinator and venture capital firm General Catalyst. The show closes with a news lightning round, including OpenAI?s decision to offer $2 million in token credits to hundreds of startups.

Guest Links:

Mercury https://mercury.com

Mercury funding announcement https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260520511817/en/Mercury-Raises-$200-Million-Series-D-at-$5.2B-Valuation

Immad Akhund on X https://x.com/immad

Kled https://www.kled.ai/

Avi Patel on X https://x.com/avipat_/

Avi?s complaint https://x.com/avipat_/status/2055384102409253056

General Catalyst https://www.generalcatalyst.com/

Y Combinator https://www.ycombinator.com/

Delve https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/23/another-customer-of-troubled-startup-delve-suffered-a-big-security-incident/

Discussion links:

Anthropic?s attack on secondary trading https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/12/anthropic-warns-investors-against-secondary-platforms-offering-access-to-its-shares/

Vanta https://www.vanta.com/twist

Timestamps:

0:00 Welcome to This Week in Startups!

2:14 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations ? interviews, meetings, calls ? you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at https://Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!

3:27 Immad Akhund (Mercury) joins to discuss $200M raise

6:33 Mercury's origin story and path to $650M run rate

9:53 Northwest Registered Agent - Get more when you start your business with Northwest. In 10 clicks and 10 minutes, you can form your company and walk away with a real business identity ? Learn more at https://northwestregisteredagent.com/twist

14:23 Stablecoins: where they work, why Mercury won't launch its own

20:13 LinkedIn - Thanks to our partners at LinkedIn! Post your job for free at https://linkedIn.com/twist then promote it to get access to LinkedIn Jobs' new AI assistant.

22:38 AI agents, and the future of money movement

27:30 Why Mercury raised less this round

30:11 Grasshopper Bank - Time is money. Don't waste either. Go to https://grasshopper.bank/twist and get an exclusive $500 cash bonus just for opening an account.

42:48 Avi Patel (Kled) joins to discuss copycat startups

57:06 Jason's verdict on YC's hacker culture & "appearance of impropriety"

1:17:39 Sam Altman's $2M-in-tokens-for-equity offer to YC founders

1:24:32 NYC hotel housekeepers cross $100K in time under new union contract

1:30:14 Minimum wage, immigration & the case for raising it slowly

Subscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.com

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X: https://twitter.com/Jason

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis

Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/

Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland

Check out Jason?s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis

Follow TWiST:

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This Week In Startups is made possible by:

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Sentry - Sentry.io/TWIST

Deel - Deel.com/TWIST

Today?s show:

AI is the villain of the 2026 commencement cycle, with business luminaries ? including Eric Schmidt ? booed for discussing or praising the technology. As students graduate into a job market forcibly reshaped by AI, increasingly negative public polling on the potential impacts of artificial intelligence on society is clearly not missing the mark.

Jason and Alex then discussed The Information?s reporting that Anthropic and OpenAI earn nearly 90% of all startup AI revenue, a Stanford student?s viral essay regarding their time at the university in a post-ChatGPT world, Flock Safety?s impressive (and worrying) web of cameras, and the upcoming Mark II AI bookmark. The episode closes with questions from our live audience!

TWIST Links:

Bounty website https://www.thisweekinstartups.com/bounty

Sidebar bounty challenge https://www.notion.so/launch1/5K-Bounty-Create-Sidebar-App-for-Podcasts-34150ff313d280adbd8ed6204676513c

Annotated.com bounty challenge https://annotated.lovable.app/

Timestamps:

0:00 TWiST All-Stars summer lineup announcement

2:43 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations ? interviews, meetings, calls ? you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at https://Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!

5:08 Eric Schmidt booed at University of Arizona commencement

8:57 Why Gen Z feels "double-crossed" by AI leaders

10:10 Deel - Founders scale faster on Deel. Set up payroll for any country in minutes, hire anyone anywhere, get visas handled fast, and get back to building. Visit https://deel.com/twist to learn more.

15:22 Is this AI's Vietnam moment? The anti-war parallel

18:04 Theo Baker's NYT essay on Stanford's AI cheating culture

19:24 Sentry - New users can get $240 in free credits when they go to https://sentry.io/twist and use the code TWIST

22:30 Why Jason says everyone should start a company

28:59 Anthropic + OpenAI capture 89% of AI startup revenue

30:17 Vanta: Get $1000 off your SOC 2 at https://www.vanta.com/twist

31:57 Are token sales a duopoly? Negative gross margins debate

35:17 Risk of building app-layer startups on top of foundation models

38:22 Inside Tracker bounty update: AI sidebar + Annotated.com

41:18 Mark II: the $159 AI bookmark Alex wants

49:31 Flock Safety solves Austin shooting via Manor PD

53:39 DeFlock map and the geography of surveillance in Texas

1:03:42 Noti Gang: AI for filing patents

1:05:45 Noti Gang: Running AI models locally on Mac Studios

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LinkedIn: ?https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelm

Follow Jason:

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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis

Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/

Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland

Check out Jason?s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis

Follow TWiST:

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This Week In Startups is made possible by:

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Self-driving just stopped being a science problem and became an engineering challenge instead. That's the through-line of today?s double-header with the CEOs of two of the most important AV companies in the world ? Wayve's Alex Kendall and Waabi's Raquel Urtasun. Between them: ~$2B raised in the last six months, Uber as a partner, Nissan and Volvo as OEMs, and a shared bet that end-to-end AI plus world models beats Waymo's city-by-city map-and-pray approach.

If you want to understand the state of the self-driving industry beyond recent Waymo announcements, this is the episode for you.

Guest Links:

Wayve: wayve.ai/

Waabi: http://waabi.ai/

Alex Kendall https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexgkendall/

Raquel Uratsun: https://www.linkedin.com/in/raquel-urtasun-298400139/

Company Links:

Wayve?s GAIA-2 world model: https://wayve.ai/thinking/gaia-2/

Wayve?s 500 city roadshow: https://wayve.ai/thinking/ai-500-roadshow-500-cities/

Wavye?s most recent funding round: https://wayve.ai/press/series-d/

Waybe + Uber: https://wayve.ai/press/wayve-nissan-uber-robotaxi-collaboration/

Waabi closed-loop simulator: https://waabi.ai/insights/waabi-world

Waabi + Volvo: https://waabi.ai/insights/waabi-and-volvo-autonomous-solutions-partner-to-jointly-develop-and-deploy-autonomous-transportation-solutions

Waabi + Uber: https://www.uberfreight.com/en-US/blog/uber-freight-and-waabi-introduce-industry-first-autonomous-truck-deployment-solution

Timestamps:

0:00 Alex Kendall (Wayve) joins the show

1:19 The contrarian bet on end-to-end AI and world models in 2017

3:05 What is a world model? GAIA-2 and GAIA-3 explained

7:34 Sensor agnosticism: camera, radar, LiDAR and minimum bar for safety

9:56 $1.5B raised ? have we cracked self-driving?

10:09 Render: Find out why 5 million developers are already using the all-in-one cloud platform, Render. Go to https://render.com/twist and apply for the Render Startup Program to get $500-$100,000 in free credits, depending on your stage and backers.

20:38 Squarespace: Use offer code TWIST to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain at https://www.Squarespace.com/TWIST

25:03 How consumers will actually pay: bundle, subscription, or free trial

30:15 IM8 Health: Start feeling like your best self every day. Go to https://IM8health.com/twist and use the code TWiST to get a free welcome kit, five free travel sachets, and 10% off your order.

35:59 Raquel Urtasun (Waabi) joins the show

36:25 World models as controllable simulators for physical AI

43:34 One AI brain across trucks, robotaxis, and beyond

47:35 What changed in AI to make 2026 the deployment year

52:28 Why Waabi raised $1B when they're capital-efficient

58:52 Where Waabi is today: Volvo VNL Autonomous, Dallas-Houston, Uber Freight

1:00:50 Per-mile pricing and the Driver-as-a-Service model

1:07:20 Has Uber tried to buy Waabi? "Not for sale"

Subscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.com

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Follow Lon:

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Follow Alex:

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LinkedIn: ?https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelm

Follow Jason:

X: https://twitter.com/Jason

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis

Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/

Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland

Check out Jason?s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis

Follow TWiST:

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This Week In Startups is made possible by:Pilot -? https://Pilot.com/TWIST?Grasshopper Bank -? https://Grasshopper.bank/TWIST?Quo -? https://Quo.com/TWiST?Plaud - ?https://Plaud.ai/twist?Anthropic just declared every unauthorized secondary sale of its stock "void" ? naming Hiive, Forge, Sydecar, Upmarket, and others in a public hit list. Jason and Alex sit down with Jenny Fielding (Everywhere Ventures), Dave McClure (Practical VC), and Sam Lessin (Slow Ventures) to unpack what the AI lab?s move to limit secondary trades means for SPV operators, brokers, and the founders trying to keep control of their cap tables. Plus: a real story of a founder who returned a $15M Series A six months after closing because Claude was going to eat his startup, SaaS moats, and just what does it mean to be rich?Timestamps:0:00 Guest introductions0:48 Anthropic voids unauthorized SPV trades8:41 Accredited investor reform & the SEC sophisticated investor test8:58 Quo (formerly OpenPhone) - Quo gives you a clean, modern way to handle every customer call, text, and thread all in one place. Try it free at https://quo.com/TWiST11:43 Naval's USVC closed-end fund as a workaround16:41 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations ? interviews, meetings, calls ? you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at https://Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!17:48 Pro-rata rights battles: when Series A investors push seed investors out19:36 Grasshopper Bank: Time is money. Don't waste either. Go to https://grasshopper.bank/twist and get an exclusive $500 cash bonus just for opening an account.29:13 Pilot: Focus on your product, let Pilot handle your bookkeeping. Pilot provides the most reliable accounting, CFO, and tax services for startups and small businesses. Head to https://pilot.com/twist and get $1,200 off your first year.30:23 Storing wealth in stories vs. cash flows34:19 Cerebras and Fervo Energy IPOs ? meaningful liquidity?37:54 Will SpaceX, Anthropic, OpenAI IPOs redistribute capital or compound it?45:58 The $15M Series A founder who returned the money because of Claude50:01 Should founders pivot or return capital when the world changes?56:43 OpenAI's $6.6B tender and Shruti Gandhi's viral SF cost-of-living tweet1:00:25 Intercom rebrands to Fin: the AI-first late-stage pivotSubscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter:? https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.com?Check out the TWIST500:? https://www.twist500.com?Subscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple:? https://rb.gy/v19fcp?Follow Lon:X:? https://x.com/lons?Follow Alex:X:? https://x.com/alex?LinkedIn:? ?https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelm?Follow Jason:X:? https://twitter.com/Jason?LinkedIn:? https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis?Check out all our partner offers:? https://partners.launch.co/?Great TWIST interviews:? Will Guidara,?? Eoghan McCabe?,? Steve Huffman?,? Brian Chesky?,? Bob Moesta,?? Aaron Levie?,? Sophia Amoruso?,? Reid Hoffman?,? Frank Slootman?,? Billy McFarland?Check out Jason?s suite of newsletters:? https://substack.com/@calacanis?Follow TWiST:Twitter:? https://twitter.com/TWiStartups?YouTube:? https://www.youtube.com/thisweekin?Instagram:? https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartups?TikTok:? https://www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartups?Substack:? https://twistartups.substack.com?

The future of AI isn't a smarter chatbot. It's a model that watches your screen, listens to the room, and acts on what it sees. We dug into Thinking Machines' new interaction model, what it means for compute, and the layoff wave that's already here.This week's roundtable: Anastasios Angelopoulos (CEO of Arena, formerly LMArena), Nick Harris (CEO of Lightmatter, photonic computing chips), and Philip Johnston (CEO of StarCloud, building megawatt data centers in space).

Thank you to our exclusive sponsor:

PayPal Open, One Platform for All Business: http://paypalopen.com/

Timestamps:

0:00 Cold open

1:21 Welcome to Episode 13

2:51 Is China closing the AI gap? Arena's data

5:16 Lightmatter and the photonic interconnect bottleneck

9:42 StarCloud 2, Nvidia Space Ruben 1, and orbital data centers

17:24 Thinking Machines' interaction model: what's actually new

28:22 Whisper Flow and the 3-pedal desk setup

33:48 Real-time desktop and camera awareness as the real unlock

40:25 Why this 100x's compute demand

42:43 The polarization of compute and $10M personal data centers

49:25 The layoff wave: Cloudflare, PayPal, Coinbase, Upwork

54:48 The 10x gap between AI-first and non-AI-first employees

59:52 Unlimited agency and the abundance future

1:00:46 Anthropic's Project Luna runs a retail store

1:03:45 Decoupling labor from value creation

1:05:03 P(doom) round

? Guests:

Anastasios Angelopoulos, Arena: https://arena.ai | @ML_Angelopolous

Nick Harris, Lightmatter: https://lightmatter.co

Philip Johnston, StarCloud: https://starcloud.com | @philipjohnston

? Referenced in this episode:

Thinking Machines, Introducing Interaction Models: https://thinkingmachines.ai/blog/interaction-models/

LMArena leaderboard: https://lmarena.ai

Lightmatter: https://lightmatter.co

Starcloud: https://www.starcloud.com

TechCrunch, Cloudflare says AI made 1,100 jobs obsolete: https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/08/cloudflare-says-ai-made-1100-jobs-obsolete-even-as-revenue-hit-a-record-high/

Fast Company, Tech layoffs this week due to AI (Cloudflare, PayPal, Coinbase, Upwork): https://www.fastcompany.com/91538995/tech-layoffs-due-to-ai-this-week-cloudflare-paypal-coinbase-upwork

Bloomberg, South Korea floats citizen dividend from AI profits: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2026-05-12/korea-s-massive-ai-boom-triggers-call-for-tech-tax-roiling-market

PYMNTS, Inside a retail store run entirely by AI (Andon Labs / Luna): https://www.pymnts.com/artificial-intelligence-2/2026/inside-a-retail-store-run-entirely-by-ai/

Wispr Flow (voice-to-text tool Jason uses): https://wisprflow.ai

Fermi Paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

? Subscribe and follow:

Newsletter and all platforms: https://thisweekinai.ai

#ThisWeekInAI #AI #ThinkingMachines #Lightmatter #StarCloud #Arena #Anthropic #ProjectLuna #AIcompute #AIlayoffs #Superintelligence

Today?s show:

Cerebras just jacked its IPO range to $150?$160 a share, OpenAI bought a consulting firm to seed its $4 billion private-equity joint venture, and a startup in Oakland is electrolyzing magnesium out of seawater for one-third the going price. Alex Wilhelm and Jason Calacanis go deep with AI21 co-CEO Ori Goshen on why model orchestration, not bigger LLMs, will decide who wins enterprise AI.

The crew also covered the decline of OpenClaw, TikTok's new £3.99 ad-free tier, more entries in the live-show sidebar bounty, and had time for a little Off Duty before signing off.

Guest Links:

Ori Goshen on LinkedIn

AI21

Alex Grant on LinkedIn

Magrathea Metals

Timestamps:

0:00 Ori Goshen, CEO of AI21 joins the show

1:20 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations ? interviews, meetings, calls ? you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at https://Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!

5:14 Why enterprises care about token cost optimization

6:01 Jamba as open-weight; Maestro as proprietary orchestration

10:08 LinkedIn Jobs - Hire right, the first time. Post your first job and get $100 off towards your job post at https://LinkedIn.com/twist

12:56 AI21 customer roster: FNAC, US tech giants, Israeli companies

19:01 Alex Grant, CEO of Magrathea Metals joins to discuss pulling magnesium from seawater

20:03 Live video of the Oakland pilot electrolyzer

20:10 Deel - Founders scale faster on Deel. Set up payroll for any country in minutes, hire anyone anywhere, get visas handled fast, and get back to building. Visit https://deel.com/twist to learn more.

22:01 Magnesium as a "gateway metal" for aluminum, defense, aerospace

23:20 TETRA joint venture & the Evergreen Project in Arkansas

23:38 Series A close, JV economics: $3,000/ton vs. $7,000/ton market

29:10 Sidebar bounty update: Glass Sidebar (Oliver Choy) demo

30:47 Netsuite - Get the free business guide Demystifying AI at https://netsuite.com/twist

31:47 Sidebar bounty update: Sidecast (Patrick Hughes) demo

36:09 Reducing scope to "real-time fact checker only" for final round

37:24 Ro.co: Ro's insurance checker will let you know if your coverage includes GLP-1s for FREE. Go to https://Ro.co/Twist for your free insurance check.

39:07 Cerebras IPO: $115?$125 ? $150?$160 per share

44:19 Will OpenAI's compute commitments to Cerebras actually get funded?

49:19 Fervo Energy IPO ? venture-backed geothermal company going public

49:40 OpenAI Deployment Company + Tomoro acquisition explained

53:51 Anthropic's parallel $1.5B PE joint venture with Blackstone & Goldman

56:05 Why Jason thinks these PE spinouts are convoluted financial engineering

56:40 OpenClaw's decline + competition from Cowork, Perplexity, Grok

1:04:22 TikTok's £3.99 ad-free subscription launches in the UK

1:09:09 Knicks sweep 76ers ? Jason's playoff predictions

1:11:24 Off-duty: "There Is No Antimemetics Division" by qntm

1:13:25 Off-duty: Fall of Civilizations podcast by Paul Cooper

1:16:37 States' rights, federalism, housing supply & closing thoughts

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Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland

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Banks don?t want to hand over their data to AI labs. So David Moscatelli built a $250,000 box that runs AI on-prem. He already has 1,600 pre-orders. On today?s episode of TWiST, Jason and Alex sit down with the Go Abacus founder and Yanez's Jose Caldera to unpack how regulated industries are getting AI without the cloud, why Bittensor subnet 54 is incentivizing miners to attack identity systems, and why Cloudflare just laid off 20% of its workforce in the same week it raised guidance. The show closes with Jason explaining what it means to build an AI-first startup, and how workers can derisk their future employment!

Guest Links:

Go Abacus

Go1 direct link

David Moscatelli on LinkedIn

Yanez

Bittensor Subnet 54 on TAOstats

Jose Caldera on LinkedIn

LAUNCH Links:

Founder University

Founder University Japan application portal

News Links:

Cloudflare lays off 20% of its staff

Coinbase cuts 14% of its staff

Block post on how it is rebuilding its company

Block?s earnings, including its raised guidance

Anthropic?s massive upcoming funding round

WHOOP?s new on-demand clinicians

Stripe Atlas?s growth

Timestamps:

0:00 Introduction: Jason in Brooklyn, Knicks playoffs

2:30 Go Abacus joins: AI infrastructure for regulated industries

3:25 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations ? interviews, meetings, calls ? you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at https://Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!

4:00 The Go1: 2,000-user on-prem AI appliance

7:04 Pricing the Go1: How far does $250,000 go?

7:24 1,600 orders and the hardware delivery challenge

10:14 Sentry - New users can get $240 in free credits when they go to https://sentry.io/twist and use the code TWIST

20:23 Every.io - For all of your incorporation, banking, payroll, benefits, accounting, taxes or other back-office administration needs, visit https://every.io

27:22 Chicago tech scene and in-office culture

30:09 IM8 Health: Start feeling like your best self every day. Go to https://IM8health.com/twist and use the code TWiST to get a free welcome kit, five free travel sachets, and 10% off your order.

35:11 Yanez joins: How to prove personhood and uniqueness

38:32 How biometric capture and bio-keys work

40:05 Agent delegation: proving humans authorized AI agents

44:19 Bittensor Subnet 54 and incentivizing adversarial miners

47:11 Founder University Japan Cohort 2 applications open

49:15 Tech layoffs: Cloudflare cuts 20%, Coinbase cuts 14%, Block raises guidance

1:02:14 Anthropic's $50B round at $900B pre-money

1:04:22 WHOOP adds on-demand clinicians

1:06:42 Federalism, state-level regulation, and AI policy

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Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/

Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland

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The top 5 U.S. venture firms captured 73% of all LP commits in Q1, and three veteran VCs say the math may have officially broken. Aleph's Michael Eisenberg argues we may be witnessing the end of a 60-year run for venture capital as a craft business. Maniv's Mike Granoff and Oxcart's Larry Covert push back, arguing it's merely splitting into two asset classes: "Consensus VC" and traditional VC. Either way, the implications for founders, LPs, and the next decade of innovation are enormous.

TWiST is back on the beat with a venture round table discussing investment concentration, the IPO drought, "bullshit ARR" in the AI era, AI gross margins, the U.S.-China chip war, the Iran conflict's impact on defense tech, the death of NATO and the rise of allied supply chains, why Tel Aviv's stock exchange could become the next NASDAQ, and a lightning round on each VC's favorite portfolio company. Let?s go!

Timestamps:

0:00 Intro + sponsor reads (Grasshopper Bank, PaperOS, LinkedIn Jobs)

0:58 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations ? interviews, meetings, calls ? you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at https://Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!

2:13 Introductions: Eisenberg (Aleph), Granoff (Maniv), Covert (Oxcart)

3:57 The impact of rising venture capital concentration

6:43 "We may be witnessing the end of venture capital"

9:17 Consensus VC vs. Traditional VC

10:01 LinkedIn Jobs - Hire right, the first time. Post your first job and get $100 off towards your job post at https://LinkedIn.com/twist

11:48 Why mid-size firms beat the behemoths on founder access

19:35 Coining "Consensus Colossal Collaborative Capital" (CCCC)

20:03 AngelList's USVC retail VC fund ? does it help mid-size funds?

20:18 PaperOS - Whether you're raising a round, launching a fund, or managing a venture portfolio, PaperOS can unlock simplicity and scale across your empire of capital, contracts, and companies. Claim your $10,000 credit at https://paperos.com/twist

23:27 Are there more breakout startups today than 5 years ago?

28:36 The "bullshit ARR" problem and AI gross margins

30:03 Grasshopper Bank - Time is money. Don't waste either. Go to https://grasshopper.bank/twist and get an exclusive $500 cash bonus just for opening an account.

32:08 Cursor's negative gross margins and the hyperscaler funding flywheel

33:06 Are we all electron constrained?

35:35 Are we headed for surge pricing on compute?

40:22 Will anything replace NVIDIA? NextSilicon, Hailo & Israel's chip stack

43:33 Distillation, small models, and Apple's edge advantage

46:38 Public trust in AI: should government mandate Waymo & FSD?

1:02:58 Defense tech: Saronic, Anduril & the coming defense M&A wave

1:06:35 The Iran war timeline & supply chain impact

1:18:52 Lightning round: Jiga, Divergent, Volaback, Firehawk, Harbinger

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Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/

Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland

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Have you wanted to invest in venture capital alongside your 401k contributions, but struggled to find a way to place a bet? Search no more, for the AngelList team has created USVC, a new fund that will accept investments of as little as $500 from folks who lack accreditation. USVC?s Ankur Napgal swung by the show to chat about investment strategies, access, fees, and just how illiquid the venture-like vehicle will prove to be.

Jason and Alex were then joined by Jon Durbin, core contributor at Chutes, and Yash Goenka, co-founder and CEO of Humwork. Chutes is the most valuable Bittensor subnet, focused on aggregating GPUs to offer trustless AI compute. Humwork wants to help bring a human into your agentic workflow to unstick your agent when it runs into a hitch. The show closes with a news lightning round ? enjoy!

Timestamps:

0:00 Intro + Plaud AI sponsor read (Jason demos the NotePin S)

2:06 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations ? interviews, meetings, calls ? you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at https://Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!

3:50 Episode overview: USVC, Chutes, Humwork

7:41 USVC structure: $500 min, no accreditation, quarterly redemptions

10:28 Northwest Registered Agent - Get more when you start your business with Northwest. In 10 clicks and 10 minutes, you can form your company and walk away with a real business identity ? Learn more at https://northwestregisteredagent.com/twist

11:39 Fee structure breakdown: 1% mgmt fee, ~2.5% net expense ratio

15:41 USVC portfolio: xAI, Anthropic, OpenAI, Crusoe, Vercel

16:17 Strategy: 1/3 emerging managers, 1/3 growth, 1/3 secondaries

19:00 $1B cap and path to expanding the fund

20:33 Vanta - Compliance and security shouldn't be a deal-breaker for startups to win new business. Vanta makes it easy for companies to get a SOC 2 reports fast. Get $1,000 off for a limited time at https://www.vanta.com/twist

28:00 What is sovereign compute? Permissionless GPU networks explained

30:10 Render - Find out why 5 million developers are already using the all-in-one cloud platform, Render. Go to https://render.com/twist and apply for the Render Startup Program to get $500-$100,000 in free credits, depending on your stage and backers.

44:53 Usage history: 160B tokens/day peak, free-to-paid transition

46:41 GPU pricing: from $0.77/hr to $3.50/hr as shortage bites

49:13 DeepSeek censorship demo: Taiwan test on DeepSeek chat

57:27 Permissionless supply curves: Uber/Airbnb analogy for induced demand

59:20 Yash Goenka, co-founder of Humwork (YC S26)

1:00:49 Lightning Round: Ryan Cohen wants to buy eBay ? Jason's hot take

1:12:36 Lightning Round: Cerebras IPO update ($27?36B valuation range)

1:14:05 Lightning Round: Spirit Airlines / JetBlue / M&A regulation debate

1:19:10 OFF-DUTY: Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord

1:32:57 Alex's OFF-DUTY: Captain of Industry

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Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/

Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland

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Today?s show:

An AI agent named Valerie is running a real vending machine in San Francisco ? setting prices, ordering inventory, managing a bank account, and posting to Instagram. And it's not just a stunt. We?re getting an early look at the future of one-agent companies. There?s still work to do to help agents ease into the economy, potentially opening up new startup opportunities.

Jason Calacanis and Alex Wilhelm cover a stacked docket: Christian van der Henst demos the Valerie AI vending machine powered by OpenClaw; Robert Myers, CEO of Manifold Labs, breaks down Targon, a confidential GPU compute marketplace running on Bittensor Subnet 4; Jason calls Bitcoin "played out;" Alex is impressed by Anthropic's stunning $900 billion upcoming valuation; and the guys discuss Big Tech's accelerating CapEx spend, Chinese AI models in Congress crosshairs, and the NBA Playoffs.

Timestamps:

0:00 Intro & sponsor reads (Pilot, Shopify, Grasshopper Bank)

1:06 Christian van der Henst: Valerie the AI vending machine demo

4:28 Legal structure: Giving an AI agent business ownership via trust

7:23 Where agents can and can't operate today

10:10 Grasshopper Bank: Time is money. Don't waste either. Go to https://grasshopper.bank/twist and get an exclusive $500 cash bonus just for opening an account.

11:48 AI café in Stockholm running on agents

18:21 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations ? interviews, meetings, calls ? you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at https://Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!

19:05 Robert Myers, Manifold Labs: Targon & Bittensor Subnet 4 interview

20:21 What is Bittensor? An "incubator with 128 subnets"

21:08 Shopify: Turn those What If's into sales with the ecommerce platform powering millions of businesses. Sign up for your $1-per-month trial today at https://shopify.com/twist

25:21 Pricing, utilization caps, and why GPUs are sold out

26:38 Who's using Targon? Customers, use cases, and the mom-and-pop data center argument

30:06 Pilot: Focus on your product, let Pilot handle your bookkeeping. Pilot provides the most reliable accounting, CFO, and tax services for startups and small businesses. Head to https://pilot.com/twist and get $1,200 off your first year.

35:07 Jason explains the annotated.com vision ? 15 years in the making

39:11 Polymarket: Will Anthropic flip Bitcoin by Dec 31?

40:29 Jason's Bitcoin bear case: "It's played out. No incremental buyers."

46:05 MicroStrategy / Strategy updates

52:37 AI compute demand vs. the fiber overbuild analogy

55:55 Congress pressuring startups over Chinese AI models (DeepSeek, Moonshot)

57:11 A16z on the geopolitical risk of Chinese AI models

1:00:08 Reflection AI ? America's open source AI champion (or lack thereof)

1:01:26 Off Duty: Knicks blow out Atlanta Hawks 140?89, Jason goes road-tripping

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Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/

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The TWiST AI Basics series is made possible by Google Cloud!Check out Google Cloud?s new report, ?Future of AI: Perspectives on generative media for startups,? Featuring thoughts from today?s guest, Joaquín Cuenca AbelaVisit: goo.gle/futureofgenmedia to check it out!Today?s show:In today?s edition of TWiST AI Basics, J-Cal is joined by Joaquin Cuenca Abela, co-founder and CEO of Magnific (formerly known as Freepik). We?re discussing how generative AI is transforming the creative landscape for startups.In watching today?s show you?ll have-consider your expectations of what AI video can actually do for you and your business. What used to take a high end production team months and tens of thousands of dollars now takes 24 hours and one person with patience to learn the right tools. This conversation explores how founders can use these tools to scale their creative output better, cheaper, and faster.Timestamps:0:00 Google Cloud - Check out Google Cloud's new report, "Future of AI: Perspectives on generative media for startups," Featuring thoughts from today's guest, Joaquín Cuenca Abela at https://goo.gle/futureofgenmedia1:10 Welcome to AI Basics, presented by Google Cloud!2:11 Meet Joaquín Cuenca Abela, CEO of Magnific (formerly Freepik)3:12 Building a post-apocalyptic SF ad for TWiST in 24 hours4:25 Storyboarding characters, blending images, and text-prompting scenes6:39 The finished product: post-apocalyptic Jason!7:56 How much cheaper is this than traditional advertising?9:34 The tech stack: Magnific's upscaler and 3rd party frontier models11:02 Which Hollywood productions are actually using AI?13:14 Hollywood's 180 from "F these tools" to enthusiastic adoption14:38 One director's 600-person AI-enabled production15:23 Why Magnific built in Málaga, Spain and how they recruit AI talent16:40 Can AI ever match human creative vision?18:43 The future: 100 versions of the same ad, hyper-localized by city21:35 Where to find Magnific + Google Cloud's Future of AI reportConnect with Joaquín and Magnific!Magnific (formerly Freepik) ? Joaquín's AI creative platform, 150M+ MAU, $230M ARR ? https://magnific.comJoaquín Cuenca Abela on X ? https://x.com/cuencaJoaquín Cuenca Abela on LinkedIn ? https://www.linkedin.com/in/joaquin-cuenca-abela-905717a/Magnific on X ? https://x.com/magnificPanoramio ? Joaquín's prior startup, acquired by Google in 2007 ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PanoramioFortune feature on Magnific's $230M ARR rebrand (April 2026) ? https://fortune.com/2026/04/28/freepik-magnific-joaquin-cuenca-abela-230-million-arr-video-generation-ai-pivot/Subscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.comCheck out the TWIST500: https://www.twist500.comSubscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcpFollow Lon:X: https://x.com/lonsFollow Alex:X: https://x.com/alexLinkedIn: ?https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelmFollow Jason:X: https://twitter.com/JasonLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanisThank you to our partner!Google Cloud - Check out Google Cloud?s new report, ?Future of AI: Perspectives on generative media for startups,? Featuring thoughts from today?s guest, Joaquín Cuenca Abela at goo.gle/futureofgenmediaCheck out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarlandCheck out Jason?s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanisFollow TWiST:Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartupsYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekinInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartupsTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartupsSubstack: https://twistartups.substack.com

This Week In Startups is made possible by:

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Today?s show:

A beanie that reads your thoughts and turns them into text ? no surgery required? Jason grills the Sabi co-founders on their noninvasive brain-computer interface, backed by Vinod Khosla, and calls a cap on the whole thing (until he doesn't).

This episode of This Week in Startups covers a lot of ground: Jason's tactical tip of the day on making everyone the CEO of their domain, a deep dive into Sabi's thought-to-text beanie, a live demo of AI-powered podcast sidebars built by the TWiST audience, the announcement of a new $5K bounty for an annotation tool, and Jason's big five wellness framework.

Guests:

Sabi: Website, Wired article

Co-founder and CEO Rahul Chhabra: LinkedIn, X

Companies and people discussed:

Matt Coffin, founder of LowerMyBills.com

Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures

Neuralink, a leading BCI company

ElevenLabs, a leading voice AI startup

Calm, the popular meditation app

Timestamps:

0:00 Intro & tactical tip: Make everyone the CEO of their domain

1:49 Matt Coffin's "CEO of X" management philosophy

3:04 Community ownership: Deputizing Ricky, Lawn, Bianca, Maddie, Kabir

4:02 Building the Noti Gang: X group chats and community flywheels

5:08 Founder takeaways: Activate your top 1%, make someone the CEO of it

6:18 The streamer trick, parasocial dynamics, and creator ethics

7:59 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations ? interviews, meetings, calls ? you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at https://Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!

9:34 Guest intro: Rahul Chhabra of Sabi

10:01 What is Sabi? Noninvasive BCI in a beanie with 100,000 sensors

10:13 LinkedIn Jobs - Hire right, the first time. Post your first job and get $100 off towards your job post at https://LinkedIn.com/TWIST

11:02 How it works: From fMRI to EEG, from hospital to hat

13:46 The brain foundation model and thought-to-text decoding

15:55 Vetting the founders: BITS Pilani, Stanford, athlete fatigue AI

17:22 Vinod Khosla's investment thesis: BCI must be noninvasive

19:30 Jason's challenge: Say "Calacanis," or it doesn't count

20:11 Northwest Registered Agent: Get more when you start your business with Northwest. In 10 clicks and 10 minutes, you can form your company and walk away with a real business identity ? Learn more at https://northwestregisteredagent.com/twist

21:30 Sabi.com: Reserve your device, release by end of 2026

22:26 Privacy concerns: Does the beanie read everything?

25:41 Bounty #1: AI live sidebar contest ? demos from the TWiST audience

27:04 Oliver's breakdown: What's easy vs. hard about live AI commentary

28:40 Demo #1: Armchair (by Mark Colebrook) ? fact-checker + troll personas, live

30:59 Render: Find out why 5 million developers are already using the all-in-one cloud platform, Render. Go to https://render.com/twist and apply for the Render Startup Program to get $500-$100,000 in free credits, depending on your stage and backers.

35:30 Live political violence test: The sidebar in real time on the WHCD shooting

38:45 Demo #2: Pod Commentators / SideCast ? browser-based, Gemini-powered

40:35 Jason's revised Bounty #1 spec: Fact-checker + cynic, public stream or Zoom

42:41 Timeline: check-ins May 1, May 8; final winner May 15

44:51 Demo #3: BMD Pat (by Patrick Hughes) ? instant URL, all-snarky personas

46:52 Bounty #2 announced: Annotated.com ? a fair-use multimedia annotation tool

49:31 Annotated: the delicious.com of media commentary

51:11 Contest rules: Jason owns the domain, winner gets $5K + potential ongoing work

53:13 Wrap-up: Bounty 1 = AI sidebar, Bounty 2 = Annotated

Subscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.com

Follow Jason:

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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis

This Week In Startups is made possible by:

IM8 Health - IM8health.com/twist

Sentry - Sentry.io/twist

Deel - Deel.com/twistPlaud - https://Plaud.ai/twist

What?s the technology story of the year? No, it?s not Anthropic?s Mythos model, nor any other AI model. Upcoming IPOs? Wrong again. Jason thinks it?s China?s government?s decision to block Meta's acquisition of Manus. The multi-billion-dollar deal was heralded as evidence that AI companies founded in China could sidestep onerous government meddling by moving their operations to Singapore. That loophole now appears closed.

Jason and Lon then dug into the newly-reforged OpenAI-Microsoft partnership. The two companies have had a mutually beneficial, if fractious, operating relationship to date; that they had to rework their agreement is not a shock.

Then, your hosts watched and digested a video from China purportedly showing a self-driving car hitting a child at speed. What would happen in the United States if such a tragedy struck? And is that fait accompli?

Closing the show, Jason and Lon reacted to the latest Russell Brand implosion, discussed Lon?s new favorite show ?Criminal Record,? and shared recommended foot pedals (for AI dictation) and headphones for the road warriors tuning in.

Key Links: OpenAI and Microsoft

OpenAI?s announcement of its new Microsoft deal

Microsoft?s announcement of its new OpenAI deal

OpenAI announces its deal with AWS

News that Microsoft was considering legal action against OpenAI

Microsoft-OpenAI negotiations late 2025 edition, and terms announced in early 2026

Amazon announces that OpenAI models are coming to AWS

Timestamps:

0:00 Show starts

1:24 OpenAI and Microsoft have a new deal

3:22 Why would Microsoft cede exclusive access to OpenAI models?

5:36 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations ? interviews, meetings, calls ? you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at https://Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!

8:09 Why Jason thinks Microsoft and Apple should work together on AI

9:45 China will block the Meta-Manus deal

12:12 Deel - Founders scale faster on Deel. Set up payroll for any country in minutes, hire anyone anywhere, get visas handled fast, and get back to building. Visit https://deel.com/twist to learn more.

12:23 Golden Shares and what they provide

14:57 How do you unravel a multi-billion-dollar deal?

22:08 Sentry - New users can get $240 in free credits when they go to https://sentry.io/twist and use the code TWIST

24:42 The Huawei ADC crash

29:49 What happens when something similar happens in the United States?

31:55 IM8 Health: Start feeling like your best self every day. Go to https://IM8health.com/twist and use the code TWiST to get a free welcome kit, five free travel sachets, and 10% off your order.

36:15 Russell Brand's public humiliation

41:22 Don't trust palm reading!

43:59 Lon's Off Duty streaming pick: Criminal Record

46:25 Jason's Pick: Which foot pedal for AI dictation is right for you?

48:43 Jason's Pick: In the market for new headphones?

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Follow Lon:

X: https://x.com/lons

Follow Alex:

X: https://x.com/alex

LinkedIn: ?https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelm

Follow Jason:

X: https://twitter.com/Jason

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis

Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/

Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland

Check out Jason?s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis

Follow TWiST:

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Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com

This Week In Startups is made possible by:

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Today?s show:

It?s a News and Off-Duty weekend roundup!

AngelList?s USVC fund is open to anyone with $500, but it?s getting pushback on social media. Do the critics have a point?

A Special Forces soldier made $409K betting on the military?s capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro. Is the world just a big casino now?

And a NYT podcast defends shoplifting and explores ?social murder.? Find out why Jason says they crossed the line.

Plus: Why you should teach your kids about investment and more, Off-Duty streaming and book recommendations.

Related Links

USVC: https://usvc.com/

AngelList: https://www.angellist.com/

Naval Ravikant on X: https://x.com/naval

?Don?t Listen to the Peanut Gallery; USVC is a Watershed Moment? by Hari Raghavan: https://x.com/haridigresses/status/2047503944839016681

@Covered_Call USVC tweet: https://x.com/covered_call/status/2047020060900733306

Forge Global: https://forgeglobal.com/

Calm: https://www.calm.com/

Full DOJ indictment of Gannon Ken Van Dyke: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-soldier-charged-using-classified-information-profit-prediction-market-bets

NYT ?The Opinions? podcast: ?The Rich Don?t Play by the Rules. So Why Should I?? https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000010849055/the-rich-dont-play-by-the-rules-so-why-should-i.html

Hasn Piker on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/hasanabi

New Yorker: Jia Tolentino: https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/jia-tolentino

NYT: Nadja Spiegelman: https://www.nytimes.com/by/nadja-spiegelman

Jia Tolentino on X: https://x.com/jiatolentino

Garry Kasparov on X: https://x.com/kasparov63

Prof G Media: https://www.profgmedia.com/

Kids Investment Club: https://www.kidsinvestmentclub.com/

Time stamps:0:00 Intro

1:18 Naval's $500 VC Fund Explained

5:54 Should You Trust Critics With 2K Followers?

7:21 Learn By Betting ? Jason's Philosophy

10:10 Northwest Registered Agent - Get more when you start your business with Northwest. In 10 clicks and 10 minutes, you can form your company and walk away with a real business identity ? Learn more at https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twist

12:30 The Maduro Polymarket Scandal

13:28 Should the Military Bet on Missions?

19:55 LinkedIn Jobs - Hire right, the first time. Post your first job and get $100 off towards your job post at https://LinkedIn.com/twist

29:32 NYT Defends Theft & "Social Murder"

30:28 There Is No Moral Equivalence

33:41 The Nepo Baby Behind the Article

35:42 Prof G's "Resist & Unsubscribe" Movement

37:54 Walk The Walk ? Hasan, Bernie & Performative Outrage

44:49 Teaching Kids About Money

48:21 The Rich Get Richer & The Poor Stay Poor

Off Duty Recommendations

?The Complete Maus? by Art Spiegelman: https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Maus-Art-Spiegelman/dp/0679406417

?Thinking in Bets? by Annie Duke: https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Bets-Making-Smarter-Decisions/dp/0735216355

?Queen of Chess? trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pmJgtLKBXg

Greenlight app: https://greenlight.com/

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Follow Lon:

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Follow Jason:

X: https://twitter.com/Jason

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis

v

Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/

Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland

Check out Jason?s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis

Follow TWiST:

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This Week In Startups is made possible by:

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Today?s show:

The US military is running low on missiles, but now, Firehawk Aerospace is using 3D-printed solid rocket propellant to cut production costs in half and 5x U.S. output.

Plus: PhD researcher Maruchi Kim just built camera-equipped earbuds that perform on par with Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses and could be the next wearable AI platform hiding in plain sight.

Guests

Will Edwards: https://x.com/williewockets

Firehawk Aerospace: https://firehawkdefense.com/

Maruchi Kim: https://x.com/maruchikim

VueBuds project: https://vuebuds.cs.washington.edu/

Related Links

This Week in AI: https://www.thisweekinai.ai/

?Ghost Murmur: The Heartbeat-Tracking Tech That Has Experts Questioning the Laws of Physics?: https://www.military.com/feature/2026/04/18/ghost-murmur-heartbeat-tracking-tech-has-experts-questioning-laws-of-physics.html

Neurometric: https://www.neurometric.ai/

Meta Ray-Bans: https://www.meta.com/ai-glasses/

Hanwha Defense USA: https://www.hanwhadefenseusa.com/

Raytheon: https://www.rtx.com/

Pilatus PC-24 corporate jet: https://www.pilatus-aircraft.com/en/pc-24

PlaneSense: https://www.planesense.com/

Slopes app: https://slopesapp.com/

Speechify: https://speechify.com/

Electronic Frontier Foundation: https://www.eff.org/

Timestamps:

0:00 Are all these layoffs really AI's fault?

8:51 Why laid off people should start their own companies

9:27 Northwest Registered Agent - Get more when you start your business with Northwest. In 10 clicks and 10 minutes, you can form your company and walk away with a real business identity ? Learn more at https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twist

13:18 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations ? interviews, meetings, calls ? you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at https://Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!

15:25 Will Edwards of Firehawk joins the show

15:46 What are Solid Rocket Motors (SRMs)?

20:06 Render: Find out why 5 million developers are already using the all-in-one cloud platform, Render. Go to https://render.com/twist and apply for the Render Startup Program to get $500-$100,000 in free credits, depending on your stage and backers.

23:10 Who are Firehawk's customers?

24:25 Reimagining and reinventing the US military

28:35 How do missiles fit into the military's operations?

29:34 Agree - Stop chasing invoices at https://agree.com and tell them Jason sent you to get 50% off for life!

31:01 What's next on the roadmap for Firehawk?

31:49 How to make propellant (with easy to find ingredients)

33:13 A cheaper way to fly private

38:03 Ro.co: Ro's insurance checker will let you know if your coverage includes GLP-1s for FREE. Go to https://Ro.co/Twist for your free insurance check.

40:48 Maruchi Kim of Vuebuds joins the show!

44:35 Why are VueBuds better than meta glasses?

46:23 The biggest VueBud use cases

48:09 Jason wants to use VueBuds on the slopes

55:38 Jason's advice for angel investors: never underestimate anyone!

Subscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.com

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Follow Lon:

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LinkedIn: ?https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelm

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X: https://twitter.com/Jason

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis

Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/

Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland

Check out Jason?s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis

This Week In Startups is made possible by:

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Notion - notion.com

Today?s show:

This week, SpaceX announced that it was partnering with AI coding startup Cursor on new AI models. xAI?s parent company is bringing compute, while Cursor brings developer market share and recent successes, training its own coding models.

The deal, while interesting, comes with a steep price tag. SpaceX will pay Cursor $10 billion for their shared work, with an option to buy the entire company for $60 billion later this year.

After poking our way through the deal, Chris Zacharia and Brian McRindle of Bitstarter joined Lon and Alex. Bitstarter is a ?Kickstarter for Bittensor,? helping founders get their subnet up and running without tripping over their shoelaces. The Bitstarter crew also broke some news on the show, telling TWIST that they have a new accelerator-ish program kicking off.

Next, Ning Ren from Trajectory RL joined the program to explain how Bittensor subnet 11 is using decentralized competitions to design and release better skills. Skills ? markdown files with words ? have become a critical building tool in the agentic era; how Trajectory will monetize is an open, interesting question.

Timestamps:

2:27 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations ? interviews, meetings, calls ? you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at https://Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!

4:07 SpaceX/ xAI "partners" with Cursor!

9:35 Will the Cursor deal help pump a future SpaceX IPO?

9:57 LinkedIn Jobs - Hire right, the first time. Post your first job and get $100 off towards your job post at https://LinkedIn.com/twist.

12:14 How AI coding models like Cursor help xAI grow recursively.

17:24 Chris Zacharia and Brian McRindle of Bitstarter join the show.

20:23 Grasshopper Bank: Time is money. Don't waste either. Go to https://grasshopper.bank/twist and get an exclusive $500 cash bonus just for opening an account.

29:59 Notion - Notion brings all your notes, docs, and projects into one connected space that just works with AI built right in. Try Notion, with Notion Agent, at https://www.notion.com/twist

33:03 How Bittensor subnets monetize and how it compares to VC funds.

37:04 Is Bittensor hard-capped at 128 subnets?

42:37 Bittensor's biggest weakness.

46:10 Ning Ren of TrajectoryRL joins the show.

47:34 Skills now need entire agents just to write them!

48:26 Back up? What are skills?

1:07:38 Amazon and Anthropic's 5 BILLION deal

1:08:48 Google has 2 new chips!

1:09:50 Apple CEO, Tim is COOKED! John Ternus is in!

1:11:37 Alex is bullish on MacBook Neo!

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Follow Lon:

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LinkedIn: ?https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelm

Follow Jason:

X: https://twitter.com/Jason

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis

Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/

Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland

Check out Jason?s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis

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Today?s show:

*Eragon CEO Josh Sirota believes that you should ?own your intelligence.? He demos a live enterprise AI operating system connecting email, Slack, calendar, and financial data into a single agentic layer that?s pre-trained to understand any business inside and out.

PLUS we?ve got IONA Drones founder Etienne Louvet, a first look at Moonshot?s Kimi K2.6, and a brand new Off Duty with JCal and Lon.

FULL SHOW NOTES ON NOTION: https://thisweekinstartups-docket.notion.site/TWiST-2278-SHOW-NOTES-34872ca918e380bd9c71e684ce2db7c9?source=copy_link

Guests :

Eragon: https://eragon.ai

Josh Sirota on X: https://x.com/joshua_sirota

IONA: https://ionadrones.com/

Etienne Louvet on X: https://x.com/etienneldva

Relevant Links

Eragon Seed Round coverage: https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/18/this-startup-wants-to-make-enterprise-software-look-more-like-a-prompt/

Neurometric: https://www.neurometric.ai/

Ollama model: https://ollama.com/

Orange Slice: https://www.orangeslice.ai/

Corgi Insurance: https://www.corgi.insure/

Slash Financial: https://www.slash.com/

The Syndicate: https://thesyndicate.com/

FAA Part 108 Explained: https://pilotinstitute.com/part-108-explained/

Zipline: https://www.zipline.com/

Google Wing: https://wing.com/

Joby Aviation: https://www.jobyaviation.com/

Enterprise Ireland: https://www.enterprise-ireland.com/

Éire Composites: https://www.eirecomposites.com/

Kimi K2.6 blog post: https://www.kimi.com/blog/kimi-k2-6

Kimi K2 series on GitHub: https://github.com/moonshotai/Kimi-K2

NVIDIA GB300 NVL72 work station: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/data-center/gb300-nvl72/

Timestamps:

0:00 Josh from Eragon AI joins the show

2:01 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations ? interviews, meetings, calls ? you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at https://Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!

5:07 Why founders should own and control their data sets

8:33 What is a "company world model?"

9:48 Quo (formerly OpenPhone) - Quo gives you a clean, modern way to handle every customer call, text, and thread all in one place. Try it free at https://quo.com/TWiST

11:32 Eragon demo

15:55 Giving agents their own bank accounts

19:07 Inside Eragon's first partnerships

20:14 Vanta - Get $1000 off your SOC 2 at https://www.vanta.com/twist

25:50 How does Eragon make money?

29:11 Pilot - Visit https://www.pilot.com/twist and get $1,200 off your first year.

39:33 Etienne Louvet of Iona Drones joins the show

42:37 What is FAA's Part 108?

47:13 How innovation in drones impacts the aviation industry

50:26 Working with Enterprise Ireland

58:28 Jason attended the Breakthrough Awards

1:04:10 Doug Liman's AI-powered "Bitcoin" movie

1:09:09 "Love Story" on FX and "Dust Bunny" on HBO Max

1:13:10 Jason's love of tinned fish

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Follow Alex:

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LinkedIn: ?https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelm

Follow Jason:

X: https://twitter.com/Jason

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis

Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/

Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland

Check out Jason?s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis

Follow TWiST:

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This Week In Startups is made possible by:IM8 Health - https://IM8health.com/twist Grasshopper Bank - https://grasshopper.bank/twist Northwest Registered Agent - https://northwestregisteredagent.com/twist Plaud - https://Plaud.ai/twistToday?s show:Is 3D printing the key to not just solving the housing crisis but bringing us all into a more beautiful and utopian future? ICON founder Jason Ballard thinks so. His company is already building homes for the unhoused and delivering barracks to Fort Bliss at half the cost and a fraction of the time. On TWiST, he tells us space construction is also on the agenda.Explore the potential for robot-powered concrete construction can help build cheap homes for the unhoused, modernize our military infrastructure, AND colonize the solar system in this exclusive interview.Then Seby Rubino of Resi Labs demos his real estate ?Oracle,? which can guess the price of any home with 98% accuracy? for just fractions of a penny.PLUS Jason tells a story of the rare founder who got one over on him, and why he?s moving away from vengeance and anger and into love and acceptable.AND we?ve got more JCal and Lon recommendations in a brand-new Off Duty.Guests :Jason Ballard: https://x.com/JasonDBallardICON: https://www.iconbuild.com/ICON on X: https://x.com/ICON3DTechSeby Rubino: https://x.com/SebyverseResi Labs: https://portal.resilabs.ai/Timestamps:0:00 Intro + "balance the ledger" tease1:10 Jason Ballard (ICON) joins ? 3D-printed homes + defense (ICON Prime)5:18 Housing basics: commutes, quality of life, "food/water/shelter"7:15 ICON Prime: military construction, survivability, speed, supply chain10:08 IM8 Health: Start feeling like your best self every day. Go to https://IM8health.com/twist and use the code TWiST to get a free welcome kit, five free travel sachets, and 10% off your order.11:35 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations ? interviews, meetings, calls ? you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at https://Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!12:43 Fort Bliss barracks: 10 in 6 months, half the cost; blast/ballistics20:23 Beautiful + dignified housing: Community First Village; "where's the floor?"20:29 Grasshopper Bank: Time is money. Don't waste either. Go to https://grasshopper.bank/twist and get an exclusive $500 cash bonus just for opening an account.30:10 Northwest Registered Agent - Get more when you start your business with Northwest. In 10 clicks and 10 minutes, you can form your company and walk away with a real business identity ? Learn more at https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twist37:27 Audience Q&A: longevity/cracking; plumbing + electrical41:33 ICON Titan printer + channel partners; hiring pitch45:47 Sebi Rubino (Rezzy Labs) joins ? BitTensor subnet 46 real estate pricing51:18 Tau/BitTensor explained: subnet competitions, "narrow intelligence"59:15 Rezzy demo: portal + pricing engine; customers + business model1:07:49 "Got shivved for 500k" story: acquisition, investors get zero1:20:36 Bounties: annotated.com + AI sidebar + headless CMS on BitTensor1:31:10 Off-duty: View Buds (camera earbuds) + use cases1:38:13 Off-duty: Anker charger/cable/battery "trio"1:41:12 Off-duty: The Audacity (AMC) quick review1:46:43 Wrap-up + secret TWiST group chat on XSubscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.comCheck out the TWIST500: https://www.twist500.comSubscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcpFollow Lon:X: https://x.com/lonsFollow Jason:X: https://twitter.com/JasonLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanisCheck out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarlandCheck out Jason?s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis

This Week In Startups is made possible by:

LinkedIn Jobs - LinkedIn.com/twist Every.io - every.io Render - render.com/twist

Today?s show:

*Imagine scrolling through mobile games the way your flip through your TikTok feed. What if you could build your own game in 90 seconds and share it with the world? That?s what over 100,000 users are enjoying right now on Nanogram.

On TWiST, we meet the co-founders: 22-year-old CEO Albert Brotherton and 24-year-old CTO Boris Radilov. They demo the app for us on the air, and Jason immediately spies the potential. Power users are playing 25+ games per session already.

We?re digging into the co-founders future plans, including the potential for ads in your game feed, in this TWiST exclusive.

PLUS domestic helper bots are here. NEO from 1X Technologies can do the laundry, open the door for guests, and even read and understand Post-It Note messages.

Alex talks with CEO Bernt Børnich about building the safety-first 66-lb humanoid, why world models are so crucial for training robots in particular, and why homes are even tougher places for robots to navigate than factory floors.

Timestamps:0:59 Nanogram co-creators Albert and Boris join the show

3:42 Nanogram is TikTok for casual AI-generated games

4:27 Building Nanogram with Google Gemini

5:49 Draper and Associates: https://www.draper.vc

6:11 Integrating ads into the game feed

7:36 Roblox: https://www.roblox.com World of Warcraft: https://worldofwarcraft.blizzard.com

8:25 Building in New York

9:07 Jason is obsessed with the Staples Baddie https://www.tiktok.com/@blivxx

10:12 LinkedIn Jobs - Hire right, the first time. Post your first job and get $100 off towards your job post at https://LinkedIn.com/twist

20:36 Every.io - For all of your incorporation, banking, payroll, benefits, accounting, taxes or other back-office administration needs, visit https://every.io

21:40 1X CEO and founder Bernt Børnich joins the show https://x.com/BerntBornich

22:31 Designing robots to actually live around people

26:30 Teaching NEO about movement in the physical world

29:00 TechCrunch coverage: https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/13/neo-humanoid-maker-1x-releases-world-model-to-help-bots-learn-what-they-see/

29:58 Render: Find out why 5 million developers are already using the all-in-one cloud platform, Render. Go to https://render.com/twist and apply for the Render Startup Program to get $500-$100,000 in free credits, depending on your stage and backers.

31:04 Moving beyond training data to true general intelligence

33:17 Ensuring NEO pursues the safest possible path

34:19 Why are world models so important?

41:51 1X World Model Challenge on GitHub: https://github.com/1x-technologies/1xgpt

45:14 Robots need to train on a lot of data? Where does it all come from?

50:14 Manufacturing NEO from raw materials in San Carlos

56:32 Robots building robots

Subscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.com

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Follow Lon:

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LinkedIn: ?https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelm

Follow Jason:

X: https://twitter.com/Jason

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis

Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/

Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland

Check out Jason?s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis

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Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com

This Week In Startups is made possible by:

Sentry - https://sentry.io/twist

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https://netsuite.com/twist

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Today?s show:

*TAO just had its worst week since launch. One of Bittensor?s most prominent subnet operators allegedly dumped $10 million in tokens and walked away. We?re digging into what we know, how this could change the Bittensor community? and why dedicated builders still believe in this ecosystem.

Jason and Lon are joined by Stillcore Capital Partner Mark Jeffrey to break down the Covenant AI and Templar controversy in real time. Then they?re joined by three prominent subnet founders: Ken Miyachi of BitMind (Subnet 34) and Will Squires of Steffen Cruz of MacroCosmos (which owns Subnets 1, 9, and 13). Together, they?re investigating how Bittensor incentives work, how real products are still emerging from the TAO ecosystem, and what governance fixes could arise to prevent the next (alleged) rug pull.

Timestamps:

0:00 Mark Jeffrey joins the show! https://x.com/markjeffrey

2:18 How Mark Jeffrey learned about Bittensor. https://bittensor.com/

6:17 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations ? interviews, meetings, calls ? you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at https://Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!

7:22 Mark Jeffrey's Bittensor investments. https://stillcorecapital.com/

9:25 Check out our discussion with Nova: https://youtu.be/gjRt4eUyiYc?si=HopdmmSarxECark1

10:16 Sentry - New users can get $240 in free credits when they go to https://sentry.io/twist and use the code TWIST

10:41 Check out Ridges! https://www.ridges.ai/

11:53 How trading alpha tokens works on Bittensor

12:44 Subnet drama: what happened? https://x.com/covenant_ai/status/2042380152831951300

16:01 Do subnet owners have too much power?

18:33 Check out our conversation with Sam Dare (2268): https://youtu.be/TN2RmNuX4-k?si=c58Byh7Fsw1ttnAY

19:10 How Sam Dare should've handled walking away (per Mark Jeffrey)

20:02 Deel - Founders scale faster on Deel. Set up payroll for any country in minutes, hire anyone anywhere, get visas handled fast, and get back to building. Visit https://deel.com/twist to learn more.

23:29 Who should subnets be owned by?

24:02 Ken Miyachi from BitMind joins the show https://x.com/kenmiyachi

30:56 Netsuite - Get the free business guide Demystifying AI at https://www.netsuite.com/twist

31:06 Ken's $3M raise & investors (Arch, Canonical, Mechanism)

33:18 Token vs. equity: how to think about a subnet investment.

41:57 Will Squires and Stefan Kruse of MacroCosmos join the show https://x.com/willsquires https://x.com/sczsteffencruz

56:29 Stefan on the Covenant drama: "disappointing, but solvable"

1:02:11 Off-duty with J-Cal, Mark Jeffrey, and Lon Harris

1:02:48 Bieber vs. Carpenter: does Coachella owe you a spectacle? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hp5O72WUqTk https://x.com/FashionXGirl_/status/2043251270509592936

1:15:20 Jason says Staples should pay the "Staples baddie" $1M/year https://www.tiktok.com/@blivxx

Subscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.com

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Follow Lon:

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LinkedIn: ?https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelm

Follow Jason:

X: https://twitter.com/Jason

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis

Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/

Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland

Check out Jason?s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis

Follow TWiST:

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This Week In Startups is made possible by:

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Today?s show:

TAO, the token associated with the Bittensor network, fell sharply last night after a major project declared it was taking its business elsewhere. Covenant AI had used Bittensor subnets 3, 39, and 89 before its abrupt and controversial decision to depart for other digital shores.

Gareth Howells, a co-founder of Vidaio (Bittensor Subnet 85), joined Jason and Alex to share the community perspective regarding Covenant?s decision to leave Bittensor, a choice that was especially bitter given that its recently-released Covenant-72B model trained using the network?s decentralized capabilities was hailed at the time as a demonstration of the crypto-AI hybrid?s potential. (Covenant?s Sam Dare was a recent guest on TWiST.)

Howells walked us through Vidaio?s product (AI models for high-quality video work, like upscaling)

Then it was time to bring new fan-favorite Ole Lehmann on. Ole took an Andrej Karpathy concept, and turned it into a skill that you can use in either OpenClaw or Claude Cowork.

Guests

Ole Lehmann: https://x.com/itsolelehmann

The AI Solopreneur newsletter: https://aisolo.beehiiv.com/

Vidaio: https://vidaio.io/

Vidaio on X: https://x.com/vidaio_

Timestamps:

0:00 Drama in the Bittensor space! Was there a rugpull?

1:01 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations ? interviews, meetings, calls ? you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at https://Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!

1:47 Gareth Howells of subnet85 joins the show: https://x.com/GarethHowells

9:56 Northwest Registered Agent - Get more when you start your business with Northwest. In 10 clicks and 10 minutes, you can form your company and walk away with a real business identity ? Learn more at https://northwestregisteredagent.com/TWIST

11:37 Gareth reacts to the Covenant situation? Did Sam sell tokens?

14:33 How VidAIo (subnet85) optimizes video as cheaply as possible. https://vidaio.io/

20:06 Squarespace - Use offer code TWIST to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain at https://squarespace.com/TWIST

21:12 Demo: Gareth shows upscaled footage of our very own Lon Harris

27:09 Who is actually doing the computing on Bittensor?

28:15 How Bittensor recruits tech talent from emerging markets

29:42 Pilot - Visit https://pilot.com/TWIST and get $1,200 off your first year.

30:58 Jason's explains the Bittensor network. https://docs.bittensor.com/

37:28 Jason addresses "pump and dump" allegations

40:46 Ole Lehmann joins the show https://x.com/itsolelehmann

45:31 Jason's $1,000 "bounty" for enhanced show notes

49:35 Check out Ole's newsletter at aisolo.beehiiv.com !

59:50 CrowdHealth - CrowdHealth lets you ditch the bureaucracy with a peer-to-peer funding platform for your healthcare. Get started for $99 per month for your first three months by using the code TWIST at https://JoinCrowdHealth.com/twist.

1:00:46 Off Duty with Alex and J-Cal!

1:04:46 Reacting to the Maul trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkVepshZhGc

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Follow Lon:

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Anthropic just built a model so dangerous, they?re not even going to release it (for now). On TWiST, Jason, Alex, and Neurometric CEO Rob May discuss whether or not this is just another frontier model or a potential weapon of mass internet destruction.

Claude Mythos Preview is already in the hands of over 40 Anthropic partners ? including Nvidia, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google ? as part of its ?Project Glasswing? security council.

Together, they?ll test how quickly and easily the model can thwart today?s most elite cybersecurity protocols, and try to develop fresh protocols to keep our most sensitive and critical software systems safe and intact. Once Mythos or a similarly powerful model hits the streets? it?s all over!

Plus, we?re checking out the real-time SaaSpocalypse monitor Death By Clawd, and chatting with its creator, Gyani, about how it feels to have your startup one-shotted by Anthropic?s latest model.

Guests

Rob May: https://x.com/robmay

Neurometric: https://www.neurometric.ai/

Neurometric SLM Marketplace: https://marketplace.neurometric.ai/

Death by Clawd: https://deathbyclawd.com/

Nick O?Neill: https://x.com/chooserich

This Week In Startups is made possible by:

LinkedIn Jobs - LinkedIn.com/twist

Grasshopper Bank - Grasshopper.bank/twist

Render - Render.com/twist

Plaud - https://Plaud.ai/twist

Today?s show:

Timestamps:

0:00 Anthropic's new, powerful 'Mythos' model

3:50 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations ? interviews, meetings, calls ? you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at https://Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!

5:26 Neurometric's Rob May joins the show

10:04 Sam Altman's talent exodus

10:50 Render - Go to https://render.com/twist to apply for the Render Startup Program. You'll get anywhere from $500 to $100,000 in free credits.

11:50 Has Anthropic Passed OpenAI?

15:44 When will Claude release Mythos? Polymarket: https://polymarket.com/event/claude-mythos-released-by

18:32 The AI race turns existential

19:16 Would Anthropic's model give the CIA the ability to hack a foreign government?

20:04 Grasshopper Bank - Time is money. Don't waste either. Go to https://grasshopper.bank/twist and get an exclusive $500 cash bonus just for opening an account.

21:19 Should AI be nationalized?

29:43 Subsidizing secret AI development.

30:15 LinkedIn Jobs - Hire right, the first time. Post your first job and get $100 off towards your job post at https://LinkedIn.com/twist

31:29 How much of the military's $1.5T will go to AI cybersecurity?

35:17 Nick O'Neill's "not sponsored" call-in.

38:24 What is an SLM?

42:01 Tactical/Practical: How can you tune SLMs

45:43 How Neurometric can afford 100M free tokens per month for its users?

49:04 What is "harness engineering"?

50:58 Tactical/ Practical: Every Reddit rant is a startup idea

1:00:25 Why Meta is the most un-innovative AI company in the world.

1:03:43 Gyani of Deathbclawd joins the show ? Is your company COOKED?

Subscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.com

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Follow Lon:

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LinkedIn: ?https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelm

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X: https://twitter.com/Jason

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis

Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/

Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland

Check out Jason?s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis

Follow TWiST:

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Anthropic just pulled the plug on Claude subscriptions for OpenClaw and every third party agentic tool. So Jason and Lon welcome back three of our top TWiST OpenClaw experts to break down what it means, how much it?s going to cost now, and whether this is truly the end of the subsidized AI era.

And they all brought demos! We?re checking out ClawChief from Ryan Carson, Alex Finn?s agent Henry, and Yazin Alirhayim?s Sidecast protocol, inspired by a special request from JCal!

Hosts

Jason Calacanis: http://x.com/jason

Lon Harris: https://x.com/lons

Guests

Ryan Carson: https://x.com/ryancarson

Clawchief: https://github.com/snarktank/clawchief

Alex Finn: https://x.com/AlexFinn

Creator Buddy: https://www.creatorbuddy.io/

Yazin Alirhayim: https://x.com/yazins

OpenOats / Sidecast: https://github.com/yazinsai/OpenOats

Further Reading

The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande: https://www.amazon.com/Checklist-Manifesto-How-Things-Right/dp/0312430000

Marc Andreessen on AI job loss: https://x.com/pmarca/status/2040919227641856307

OpenAI acquires TBPN: https://openai.com/index/openai-acquires-tbpn/

This Week In Startups is made possible by:

Gusto - https://Gusto.com/twist

Vanta - https://vanta.com/twist

Shopify - https://shopify.com/twist

Plaud - https://Plaud.ai/twist

Today?s show:

Timestamps:

0:00 Welcome back to TWiST

0:32 Jason's thinks Andor is as good as Empire Strikes Back?

2:30 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations ? interviews, meetings, calls ? you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at https://Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!

3:26 Check out the checklist manifesto! https://www.amazon.com/Checklist-Manifesto-How-Things-Right/dp/0312430000

6:36 Our guests Ryan Carson, Alex Finn, and Yazin Alirhayim, and join the show

10:28 Gusto - Check out the online payroll and benefits experts with software built specifically for small businesses and startups. Try Gusto today and get three months FREE at https://Gusto.com/twist.

10:46 People are automating their coworkers and getting them fired?

18:32 Anthropic Bans OpenClaw

20:06 Vanta - Get $1000 off your SOC 2 at https://www.vanta.com/twist

24:06 How "caveman talk" makes AI works better

27:31 Alex thinks $2000/ month subscription plans are inevitable for AI.

29:31 Why is nobody using the leaked Anthropic Model?

30:30 Shopify: Turn those What If's into sales with the ecommerce platform powering millions of businesses. Sign up for your $1-per-month trial today at https://shopify.com/twist

32:37 Open models have been 6 months behind for the past few years

35:53 Why did OpenAI acquire TBPN?

42:01 Tactical/ Practical: The product itself is the most important thing

44:31 Demo or Die! Yazin is back to show off OpenOats

55:05 Ryan's "Claw Chief" https://github.com/snarktank/clawchief/blob/main/skills/executive-assistant/SKILL.md?plain=1

1:02:14 Alex's big announcement, "Henry intelligent machines"

1:12:33 Alex Finn DESTROYS Higgsfield's marketing strategy

1:15:35 Throwback to "Pay Per Post"

Subscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.com

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Follow Lon:

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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis

Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/

Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland

Check out Jason?s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis

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Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com

This Week In Startups is made possible by:

Deel - deel.com/twist

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An AI ?holding company? rebuilt dozens of YC Winter ?26 startups in one weekend. Now we?re bringing the founder responsible into Jason?s Courtroom to defend himself.

PLUS a live demo of Boardy, the AI that acts like a virtual board member and makes crucial introductions. Find out why he gets to have so much agency, how creator Andrew D?Souza used him to raise his own $17 million round, and how this company ever plans to actually make money.

Plus Jason celebrates Apple?s 50th anniversary with a fiery rant about milking the ghost of Steve Jobs? Why OpenAI is acquiring a tech podcast? Jason?s favorite weighted vest for rucking? AND Lon?s Off Duty weekend streaming picks.

Guests

Marik Hazan:? https://x.com/MarikHazan?

Feltsense:? https://feltsense.com/?

Andrew D?Souza:? https://x.com/andrewdsouza?

Boardy:? https://www.boardy.ai/?

Timestamps:

0:00 Jason's direction for TWiST and thoughts on legacy media

5:14 Marik of Feltsense joins the show

6:10 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations ? interviews, meetings, calls ? you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at https://Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!

7:10 Marik's viral YC replicator stunt

9:45 Deel - Founders scale faster on Deel. Set up payroll for any country in minutes, hire anyone anywhere, get visas handled fast, and get back to building. Visit https://deel.com/twist to learn more.

20:39 Grasshopper bank - Time is money. Don't waste either. Go to https://grasshopper.bank/twist and get an exclusive $500 cash bonus just for opening an account.

21:33 Feltsense founder goes on trial!

25:26 Jason dunks on Bank of America's app

27:59 TBPN acquired by OpenAI

29:28 The All In Podcast is worth $1B!

30:13 Render - Find out why 5 million developers are already using the all-in-one cloud platform, Render. Go to https://render.com/twist and apply for the Render Startup Program to get $500-$100,000 in free credits, depending on your stage and backers.

33:02 Andrew D'Souza joins the show along with his agent, Boardy!

43:17 So how does Boardy make money?

48:32 Lon is becoming more and more "AI-pilled."

50:41 Tactical/ practical: "If we have data, let's look at data. If all we have are opinions, let's go with mine." -Jim Barskdale, former CEO of Netscape

1:01:00 Tactical/ practical: hire a PR firm to report on your competitors' wrongdoings.

1:02:58 Jason calls out Apple for being DISGRAZIAD!

1:15:09 Lon's TV pick of the week: "Something Very Bad is Going to Happen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMc_pWm7G7o

1:19:52 Become an Angel Investor at https://thesyndicate.com/

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This Week in AI, JCal sits down with three CEOs building the infrastructure, intelligence, and interfaces for the next era of AI: Jeremy Fraenkel (CEO, Fundamental), Victor Riparbelli (CEO, Synthesia), and Nick Harris (CEO, Lightmatter). We break down what's actually happening beneath the AI hype: the data modality LLMs completely missed, why copper is the real bottleneck in AI data centers, OpenAI shutting down Sora, the build vs. buy debate for AI tools, and how close we really are to AGI.

AI's Biggest Blind Spot, Tabular Data: LLMs transformed text, images, and code, but 70-80% of enterprise data lives in rows and columns.Copper Can't Keep Up: Nick explains why AI data centers are hitting a wall. GPUs compute faster than they can communicate. Lightmatter's photonic chips push 1.6 terabits per fiber and can 3x training speed.Why OpenAI Killed Sora & Anthropic's Focus is Winning: Victor breaks down why even OpenAI had to learn the lesson of focus, and why Claude Code has every founder talking.Vibe Coding Your Own CRM vs. Buying Salesforce: Jeremy reveals Fundamental built their own internal CRM using vibe coding. The panel debates when building beats buying and when it's a distraction.The Omnipresent CEO: Jason shares how he's using AI agents for root access to Slack, Gmail, and Notion, resurrecting former employees as AI personas, automating SDR workflows, and summarizing employee inboxes while they're on vacation.Are We Already at AGI?: Nick says the rate of progress is a double exponential. Jeremy argues AGI is a moving goalpost. Victor warns of "Future Shock" and societal disruption.

? Learn more about Fundamental: https://fundamental.tech? Learn more about Synthesia: https://www.synthesia.io? Learn more about Lightmatter: https://lightmatter.coThis Week In AI is made possible by:PayPal Open - One Platform for all Business: paypalopen.comTimestamps:00:00 Welcome & intro to Jeremy Fraenkel, Victor Riparbelli, and Nick Harris01:47 What is Fundamental? Large tabular models explained07:01 Victor Riparbelli on Synthesia & why OpenAI killed Sora11:09 Claude Code dominance & the Lightspeed founder retreat12:08 Nick Harris on Lightmatter, photonics & the new Moore's Law14:38 Copper vs. fiber: why AI data centers are hitting a wall18:44 Reinventing video: interactive, real-time, personalized21:32 The economics of a custom AI movie23:55 Why Amazon, Google & Meta are building their own chips28:06 Tables have a bandwidth problem too32:27 When will compute be as cheap as storage?36:10 The future of software: every company gets a custom stack38:06 Vibe coding your own CRM vs. buying Salesforce45:57 Jason's quest for root access to Slack50:18 The omnipresent CEO: Doctor Manhattan meets Jesus CEO52:13 Resurrecting former employees as AI personas53:25 Victor's executive changelog for a 650-person company55:07 Whisper Flow & the Plaud Pin1:00:03 AGI: is it already here?1:03:37 Jeremy: we've only solved half the brain1:06:30 70% of Americans fear AI will impact jobs1:08:47 Future Shock & keeping the rope tight*Mentioned in the show:*

Wisper Flow: https://wisperflow.ai

Plaud Pin: https://www.plaud.aiAthena Executive Assistants: https://www.athenawow.comWHOOP: https://www.whoop.com"Future Shock" by Alvin Toffler: https://www.amazon.com/Future-ShockAlvin-Toffler/dp/0394425863Victor on TWiST, E1776: https://youtu.be/jxET4fq_2eANick on TWiST, E1787: https://youtu.be/FPW2nnEqfMsSubscribe to This Week in AI on Apple: https://thisweekinai.ai/spotifySubscribe to This Week in AI on Spotify: https://thisweekinai.ai/appleThanks for watching!? If you want to stay ahead of the curve on all things AI, make sure to join our community across all platforms:? Get the Weekly Newsletter: https://thisweekinai.ai/? Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ThisWeekinAIPodcast? Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinaipodcast

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Today?s show:

Silicon Valley just lined up its biggest liquidity event in years: SpaceX filed confidentially for an IPO that could target a $1.75 trillion valuation ? potentially the largest public offering in history. Meanwhile, a new Quinnipiac poll shows that 62% of Americans aren't excited about AI, and 70% think it will destroy their jobs. The disconnect between Sand Hill Road and Main Street has never been wider, and this panel is here to argue about what to do about it.

Jason Calacanis and co-host Alex Wilhelm are joined by Delian Asparouhov, Partner at Founders Fund and co-founder of Varda Space Industries; Salen Churi, General Partner at Trust Ventures, focused on regulated industries and physical infrastructure; and Larsen Jensen, Founder and GP of Harpoon Ventures and former Navy SEAL.

They dig into the SpaceX IPO and what it means for LP liquidity, founder formation, and venture capital's comeback story; the gap between Silicon Valley's AI optimism and public hostility; whether defense tech is in a bubble after $49 billion flooded the sector in 2025; the Marc Andreessen "zero introspection" thesis for founders; America's reindustrialization challenge and the rare earths supply chain crisis; and Artemis?s path to putting boots back on the Moon.

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

1:09 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations ? interviews, meetings, calls ? you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at https://Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!

3:50 SpaceX files confidentially for IPO: $1.75T valuation, June target

9:00 Will the SpaceX IPO reinvigorate venture capital?

10:25 Every.io - For all of your incorporation, banking, payroll, benefits, accounting, taxes or other back-office administration needs, visit https://every.io

14:40 Quinnipiac poll: Americans use more AI but trust it less

17:31 AI's PR crisis: Dario vs. Jensen, and who's communicating well

18:02 Jason's "Invest America" proposal: give workers equity stakes

19:55 Northwest Registered Agent - Get more when you start your business with Northwest. In 10 clicks and 10 minutes, you can form your company and walk away with a real business identity ? Learn more at https://northwestregisteredagent.com/twist

21:39 Larsen: Silicon Valley is walking into the same trap as China offshoring

29:04 PaperOS - Whether you're raising a round, launching a fund, or managing a venture portfolio, PaperOS can unlock simplicity and scale across your empire of capital, contracts, and companies. Claim your $10,000 credit at https://paperos.com/twist

29:50 Polymarket: 24% chance of a federal AI data center moratorium

33:57 Marc Andreessen on zero introspection (David Senra podcast clip)

46:48 Is defense tech in a bubble?

1:10:32 Saronic raises $1.75B for autonomous drone boats

1:25:07 Anthropic vs. OpenAI: where would you put your entire net worth?

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Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland

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Today?s show:

Google project manager Shubham Saboo is running 6 AI agents on a Mac Mini that handle all of his side business autonomously, from research, to social posts, to newsletters.

He joins Jason and Lon to walk us through his 5-step framework for designing an efficient AI agent team:

Start with one agent and onboard them like a new hire

Stop Googling fixes; just ask your agent how to use it

Put your agents on fixed schedules

Add shared memory so you don?t have to repeat yourself

Let agents run self-reviews and rewrite their own instructions.

Get the walkthrough to put this entire plan into practice on today?s episode. PLUS fresh demos of the ?Minecraft?-inspired virtual workspace MoltWorld and AgentMail, which is Gmail for your AI pals, and Jason explains the thinking behind his viral, controversy-stirring ?don?t talk to journalists? tweet.

Follow Shubham: https://x.com/Saboo_Shubham_

?How I Built an Autonomous AI Agent Team That Runs 24/7? on X: https://x.com/Saboo_Shubham_/status/2022014147450614038?s=20

Follow Mike: https://x.com/mihalich1988

MoltWorld: https://moltworld.io/

Follow Haakam: https://x.com/haakamaujla

AgentMail: https://www.agentmail.to/

Jason?s post about talking to journalists: https://x.com/Jason/status/2037573025458016659

NYT responds: https://x.com/NYTimesPR/status/2037648223771263082

Translated Japanese tweets: https://x.com/melonneet40/status/2038020624015315289, https://x.com/rambling_28/status/2038041455999246422

Japanese people singing ?Country Roads?: https://x.com/harukaawake/status/2038081269830222259

Trailer for ?Nuremberg? (now on Netflix in the US): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvAy9C-bipY

Timestamps:

0:00 Intro

1:24 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations ? interviews, meetings, calls ? you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at https://Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!

3:05 We're Claw-pilled once again; it's an all AI Agent showcase

6:15 Google AI PM Shubham Saboo's Top 5 OpenClaw tips

10:14 Quo (formerly OpenPhone) gives you a clean, modern way to handle every customer call, text, and thread all in one place. Try it free at https://quo.com/TWiST.

13:26 Tip #1 ? Onboard your agent like a new hire

17:31 Tip #2 ? Talk to your agents constantly

19:02 Tip #3 ? Put your agents on a schedule

19:51 LinkedIn Jobs - Hire right, the first time. Post your first job and get $100 off towards your job post at https://LinkedIn.com/twist.

23:41 Tip #4 ? Add cross-agent memory

29:33 Tip #5 ? Let your agents self-improve

29:51 Iru unifies identity, endpoint security, and compliance into one platform. TWiST listeners get 20% off when they book a demo at https://iru.com/twist!

34:03 Why Jason says founders should avoid journalists

38:24 How biased IS the New York Times?

47:02 DEMO: Co-founder Mike Nosov shows us MoltWorld

51:14 But what's the utility of this?

1:05:15 DEMO: Haakam Aujla presents AgentMail (YC S25)

1:09:59 How does AgentMail make money?

1:17:03 How Grok Translations are creating cross-cultural dialogue on X

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Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/

Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland

Check out Jason?s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis

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Today?s show:

AstroForge is building low-cost, replicable spacecraft to mine platinum group metals from near-Earth asteroids ? a $60 billion annual market for materials that are running out on Earth. Founder and CEO Matt Gialich joins the show to talk about the company's ambitious mission, what went wrong on their first two flights, and why Mission 3 could still change everything.

PLUS Sam Dare from Templar stops by to talk about training AI models on a decentralized blockchain, and why it?s so much cheaper and more efficient than the conventional ?data center full of GPUs? method. AND a demo of OpenOats from creator Yazin Alirhayim of his open source Granola alternative.

Astroforge: https://www.astroforge.com/

Templar: https://www.tplr.ai/

Epoch AI decentralized training post: https://epoch.ai/gradient-updates/how-far-can-decentralized-training-over-the-internet-scale

OpenOats on Github: https://github.com/yazinsai/OpenOats

Timestamps:

0:00 Intro

0:59 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations ? interviews, meetings, calls ? you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at https://Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!

3:05 We aplaud Plaud!

3:18 Astroforge is mining? asteroids?!

6:11 How creating an abundance of Platinum will impact Humanity!

9:56 Wispr Flow: Stop typing. Dictate with Wispr Flow and send clean, final-draft writing in seconds. Visit https://wisprflow.ai/twist to get started for free today.

21:16 Circle: The easiest way to build a home for your community, events, and courses ? all under your own brand. TWiST listeners get $1,000 off the Circle Plus Plan by going to https://circle.so/twist.

22:01 How Astroforge uses capitalism to unlock abundance

24:35 J-Cal subscribed to? A socialist magazine?

26:19 Sam Dare of Templar joins the show!

27:47 What is TAO doing that's uniquely different from Bitcoin

30:15 What is the incentive mechanism that Templar uses?

30:44 Deel - Founders scale faster on Deel. Set up payroll for any country in minutes, hire anyone anywhere, get visas handled fast, and get back to building. Visit https://deel.com/twist to learn more.

37:49 How much does it cost to run templar's model?

45:16 Can decentralized training over the internet scale? https://epoch.ai/gradient-updates/how-far-can-decentralized-training-over-the-internet-scale

47:16 Jason addresses his tao investment

48:48 Why brand is the moat for startups

49:47 When will a better, more exciting version of Bitcoin, can come along?

52:20 Yazin of OpenGranola Joins the show

53:36 How OpenGranola has local LLM's taking notes for you and giving you real time insights in your meeting!

1:01:45 Jason's callout for a sidebar that shows all inputs from agents

1:13:50 The economics of the new harry potter series and HBO/ Warner Brothers

1:23:33 Why Jason wants government surveillance on Disney adults?

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Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/

Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland

Check out Jason?s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis

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Today?s show:

What do drug discovery, the creator economy, and AI vision models have in common? In the case of Metanova, Bitcast, and Score, the answer is Bittensor. Yes, each of the three companies leverages the Bittensor network to get more work done, more quickly, in a completely decentralized fashion.

Metanova uses its subnet to run developer competitions to find exciting molecular candidates, parsing through a mountain of possibilities to pluck out the most promising for further investigation.

Bitcast uses its subnet to collect visibility demand from brands, which is served by video creators. The company is focused on the crypto niche to start, but will expand in time to other technology topics.

Score uses its subnet to generate highly performant, specialized vision models, which it then sells to customers through a platform (Manako).

In each case, the Bittensor?s economic engine unlocks global creativity to tackle tasks that were previously time-consuming, fragmented, or expensive to complete. Let?s see how quickly each company can scale and whether startups building on Bittensor can grow faster than their non-decentralized peers.

Timestamps:

0:00 Intro

2:19 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations ? interviews, meetings, calls ? you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at https://Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!

3:40 What is Bittensor?

7:22 Metanova Labs joins the show

9:28 Lemon.io - Get 15% off your first 4 weeks of developer time at https://Lemon.io/twist

17:16 How Metanova tackles the multi-billion dollar cost of drug discovery

20:48 Every.io - For all of your incorporation, banking, payroll, benefits, accounting, taxes or other back-office administration needs, visit https://every.io

30:20 Bitcast joins the show

31:23 Luma AI - Luma builds accessible, professional-grade AI tools for creatives. Try Luma Agents for free at https://lumalabs.ai/twist

32:30 Mining crypto with YouTube

36:48 Why Bitcast is focused on the crypto space to start

39:11 How healthy is the creator economy?

47:26 When will the AI bubble collapse?

53:44 Score joins the show

54:42 How Score will make vision AI more accessible

57:16 VLMs v. LLMs

1:01:14 Demo of the Manako platform

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Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/

Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland

Check out Jason?s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis

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This Week in AI sneak peak! If you enjoy the episode find us on Spotify, Apple podcasts and YouTube by looking up "This Week in AI" or by going to thisweekinai.ai

This week Jason sat down with Jake Loosararian and Chris Lattner on Episode 6 of This Week in AI. Jake is the CEO and co-founder of Gecko Robotics, a company deploying purpose-built robots and AI for mission-critical infrastructure inspection across energy, defense, and manufacturing. Chris is the CEO and co-founder of Modular, building a universal software layer that lets developers run AI models across Nvidia, AMD, and Apple silicon without being locked into any single hardware vendor.

We explore the GPU shortage, why China's chip smuggling reveals the stakes of the AI cold war, how purpose-built robotics are beating humanoids on ROI, the case for American reindustrialization, and why the next decade could be the best ever for private equity in capital-intensive industries.

Purpose-Built Robots vs. Humanoids: Jake has been building mission-critical robots for 13 years. He explains why general-purpose humanoids still have too little ROI for industrial use, and why specialized robots that find and fix problems are winning in the field.The GPU Shortage Is Real: Chris breaks down why you can't just go buy 100 Blackwell chips today, why Nvidia's Cuda creates massive lock-in, and how Modular is building a unified software layer across all major chip architectures.Google TPUs Are the Sleeper: Chris ranks Google as the number one threat to Nvidia's dominance, ahead of Amazon's Trainium and AMD.China's Chip Smuggling & the AI Cold War: A Supermicro co-founder allegedly smuggled $2.5B in Nvidia chips to China using fake serial numbers and a hairdryer. The Best Decade for Private Equity: Jake makes the case that capital-intensive, commoditized infrastructure assets: waste-to-energy, water treatment, old power plants will all generate incredible returns.Self-Driving State of Play: Chris, a former Tesla Autopilot lead, gives his read on Waymo's lead, Tesla's small Austin pilot, and why the real signal is when Tesla starts filing for fully autonomous permits in California.

Learn more about Gecko Robotics: https://www.geckorobotics.com

Learn more about Modular: https://www.modular.com/

This Week In AI is made possible by:

*PayPalOpen* - One Platform for all Business: paypalopen.com

*Timestamps:*

00:00 Welcome & intro to Jake Lu (Gecko Robotics) and Chris Lattner (Modular)

01:34 Gecko's 13-year journey & the Cantilever platform

05:15 Chris Lattner on Modular: replacing Cuda & unifying AI hardware

11:10 Nvidia lock-in, AMD's Rock & why the software stack is broken

19:49 The GPU shortage: how real is it?

22:13 Who challenges Nvidia? Google TPUs, Amazon Trainium & AMD ranked

28:17 China chip smuggling: $2.5B in Nvidia GPUs & the AI cold war

37:43 Self-driving update: Waymo, Tesla's Austin pilot & Chris's Tesla history

42:20 Figure's humanoid package sorting ? real or demo magic?

43:47 The best decade for private equity in capital-intensive assets

51:04 Reindustrialization, the trades boom & making manufacturing cool

58:39 Building tech companies outside Silicon Valley

1:06:46 Breaking news: Brett Adcock launches Hark from Figure

1:10:15 Closing thoughts: grit over hype, customers over valuations

Subscribe to This Week in AI on Apple: https://thisweekinai.ai/spotify

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Thanks for watching!

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Today?s show:

Hustle Fund general partner Elizabeth Yin joined Jason and Alex to discuss how rapid advances in AI have changed the venture capital game, and how the same AI updates are changing how founders build. Founders may need less capital than before, which could reduce their reliance on venture dollars over time.

Ceel founder Ryan Mahdavi joined next to help Jason and Alex dig into the Delve story. Well-funded Delve was publicly criticized for allegedly overselling their compliance tool?s capabilities and not being honest with customers. Delve has responded to the allegations, though Mahdavi said that he had his doubts about the competing startup even before the news story broke.

Next, TWiST invited Brick founder Seg Sheng on to explain his startup?s plan to use a combination of physical hardware and artificial intelligence to help buildings and data centers reduce their energy bills. Given how much juice the AI era demands, Brick could be onto something big.

And to close out the show, Gavin Zaentz and Pranav Ramesh from LeadPoet (Bittensor Subnet 71) to show off their technology (the pair put in motion a lead hunt for Brick while on-air). It?s a packed show with something for everyone. Let?s go!

Timestamps:

0:00 Intro

1:18 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations ? interviews, meetings, calls ? you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at https://Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!

3:45 Elizabeth Yin from Hustle Fund on how AI tools have changed her workflow

9:21 How founders use AI to learn how to suck less

10:34 Sentry - New users can get $240 in free credits when they go to https://sentry.io/twist and use the code TWIST

13:17 Ryan Mahdavi from Ceel joins to explain the Delve SOC 2 scandal

18:39 Is Silicon Valley's "bend the rules" culture at fault?

20:38 Red and pink flags, and how investors can spot potential fraud

21:41 LinkedIn Jobs - Hire right, the first time. Post your first job and get $100 off towards your job post at https://LinkedIn.com/twist

23:45 How to not do securities fraud: a simple guide

26:50 Ryan asks: How did the company get through diligence?

31:03 Northwest Registered Agent ? Get more when you start your business with Northwest. In 10 clicks and 10 minutes, you can form your company and walk away with a real business identity ? Learn more at https://northwestregisteredagent.com/twist

32:25 Were there early warning signs about issues with Delve?

33:26 On Delve's use of tactical donuts

36:55 What about the Delve board? If there is one?

45:24 Seb Sheng stops by to tell us about how Brick Data saves companies massively on energy costs

49:38 Who are Brick's customers and how much are they paying?

54:16 Lightning Round: A quick history of Brick

56:02 Why Jason is so bullish on $TAO

56:45 Ro.co: Ro's insurance checker will let you know if your coverage includes GLP-1s for FREE. Go to https://Ro.co/Twist for your free insurance check.

1:06:35 How do LeadPoet's "miners" track down the best leads?

1:13:09 How Bittensor subnets map to traditional startup forms

1:17:15 How can agents build up authority if they can't get hired for their first job?

1:21:03 Jason: "I think the game of Bitcoin has ended?"

1:23:22 Why Jason likes to place a bet, then learn

1:24:16 The inherent risks in crypto investment

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Today?s show:

Zipline founder Keller Cliffton started his company with a simple premise: build automated logistics that serve everyone equally. The only problem? It was literally illegal in the US.

In this live recording from LaunchFest in San Francisco, Keller shares how Zipline went from a 20-person team working on a cow farm in Rwanda to operating the largest commercial autonomous system on Earth. They now complete 130 million autonomous miles with zero accidents, while reducing maternal mortality by 51% in the regions they serve.

PLUS we?ve got Rahul Vohra from Superhuman taking us through his entire founder journey, and discussing with Jason why ?difficult? founders are often the smartest investments.

Timestamps:

0:00 Intro

1:16 Keller Cliffton starts off the show

3:05 Starting Zipline in Africa

8:40 The magic of sky maps

13:55 Building the drone was just the beginning

15:11 Making a huge difference in maternal mortality

23:48 The threats of Little Evil Jimmy and dogs

29:37 The shift from Rwanda to Dallas

31:14 Netsuite - Get the free business guide Demystifying AI at https://www.netsuite.com/twist

32:28 The moral clarity of the mission

41:17 The challenge of staying focused

46:43 Rahul Vohra of Superhuman joins Jason

49:40 Building Rapportive in Cambridge

51:48 Scaling to millions of users via APIs

1:11:46 How getting acquired made Rahul fearless

1:12:31 The boldness of taking on Gmail

1:22:12 Making everyone pay for the product

1:31:24 Inside the Grammarly-Superhuman deal

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Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland

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Today?s show:

We?ve got a treat for you today on TWiST! Jason is live from LAUNCH Fest in San Francisco, where he?s joined by Robinhood founder Vlad Tenev.

The era of AI is here. Robinhood found success in the midst of the last great technological shift. What lessons did Vlad take from this, and how can founders apply these to this next transformative period? What elements are the same and what elements have changed?

Let?s get inside the mind of one of the greatest founders of the last decade!

Timestamps:

0:00 Why Jason runs events like LAUNCH Fest.

3:25 The early days of Jason and Vlad.

5:54 Why getting users before monetizing creates a bigger business.

9:49 Deel - Founders ship faster on Deel. Set up payroll for any country in minutes and get back to building. Visit https://deel.com/twist to learn more.

11:03 Finding ways to launch a product multiple times.

13:49 How Robinhood identified its initial customers.

20:09 LinkedIn Jobs - Hire right, the first time. Post your first job and get $100 off towards your job post at https://LinkedIn.com/twist.

21:04 Robinhood's "give to get" and waitlist mechanics explained.

25:07 Navigating mistakes that feel existential (they're not!)

27:36 Leaning into negative press.

30:30 Iru - Iru unifies identity, endpoint security, and compliance into one platform. TWiST listeners get 20% off when they book a demo at https://iru.com/twist

32:13 Tackling competition in the AI era.

37:20 How Vlad hires and develops talent.

42:16 What is good design in an era of vibe coded slop?

46:46 Vlad's top lessons from the last 10 years.

Subscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.com

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Follow Lon:

X: https://x.com/lons

Follow Alex:

X: https://x.com/alex

LinkedIn: ?https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelm

Follow Jason:

X: https://twitter.com/Jason

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis

Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland

Check out Jason?s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis

Follow TWiST:

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YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekin

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartups

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Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com