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Binance Hacked $6.3B Stolen, DoorDash Buys Instacart For $17B, Jake Newfield from Hermetiq, + More!

30 oktober 2026 · 1 uur 11 min
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Stripe: https://stripe.com/startups

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Today’s show:

Binance lost an estimated $6.3 billion in the biggest crypto hack ever, and Jason proposes a radical solution. The entire tech industry should stop shipping new features for one month a year, and do nothing but patch. (Call it No App November?)

On a busy Friday show, Jason and Lon dig into the. Binance breach and look back at Jason’s prescient 2021 warning about leaving your money in crypto exchanges. (He recommends spreading your wealth around various different banks!) Plus, why he’s giving CZ credit for backstopping customer losses out of his own fortune.

Plus, DoorDash’s $17B acquisition of Instacart… Did DoorDash overpay? And is this happening now to avoid the harsher regulatory climate should Democrats regain power in the midterms?

Then we’ve got Hermetiq co-founder and CEO Jake Newfield, who has twice won the LAUNCH Accelerator’s pitch competition. Hear the celebrated two-minute pitch for an AI build engineer, and find out why Jason thinks having a “lighthouse customer” makes such a huge difference.

Finally, we’re awarding the Grand Prize in our $5K bounty competition to create Jason’s Annotated app, and remembering the legendary film and TV actor Sir Patrick Stewart.

Guest

Jake Newfield on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakenewfield/

Hermetiq: https://www.hermetiq.com/

Bazel: https://bazel.build

Apply to the LAUNCH Accelerator: https://www.launch.co/apply

Relevant Links

Binance links the $6.3B theft to a compromised DevOps laptop (BleepingComputer): https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/binance-links-63-billion-crypto-theft-to-compromised-devops-laptop/

The 1978 Lufthansa heist (History.com): https://www.history.com/articles/1978-lufthansa-heist-jfk-henry-hill-goodfellas

Trump pardons Bin…
Is AI the new cigarettes? Our VC panel digs into Anthropic’s S-1 | E2356

29 oktober 2026 · 1 uur 12 min
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PayPal: https://paypal.com/business

The Conservation Fund: https://www.conservationfund.org/

Hostinger: https://hostinger.com/twist

Plaud: https://plaud.ai/twist

Today’s show:

Anthropic’s S-1 is here, and finally, we can start to develop a real understanding for the AI economy and whether the numbers add up. Anthropic shows an operating profit, a mostly non-cash $80.7 billion loss, and customers spending a shocking 9x what they were spending on intelligence just one year ago.

Is this the greatest business in history? Is AI now as addictive to enterprises as cigarettes once were to impressionable teens?

On this week’s VC Roundtable, Jason Calacanis is joined by D.A. Wallach (Time BioVentures), Dave McClure (Practical Venture Capital), and Ben Black (Akkadian Ventures / Powerlaw Corp.) to seek some answers.

They dig into the numbers, including that wild 900% net revenue retention, and consider how retail investors will consider the convertible-note charge behind their $80B loss. Plus they’ll debate whether Anthropic’s founders are really true believers driven by religious fervor, and if so, whether they’re destined to be out-competed by “rabid capitalists.”

Guests

D.A. Wallach on X: https://x.com/dawallach

Time BioVentures: https://www.timebioventures.com/

Dave McClure on X: https://x.com/davemcclure

Practical Venture Capital: https://practicalvc.com/

Trading Places podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@PracticalVentureCapital

Ben Black on LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/benblack

Akkadian Ventures: https://akkadian.vc/

Powerlaw Corp: https://pwrl.com

Relevant Links

Anthropic’s S-1, by the numbers (Fortune): https://fortune.com/2026/10/27/anthropic-s1-ipo-filing-financials-profits/

900% NRR and an $80.7B loss that mostly ins’t (HackerNoon): https://hackernoon.com/anthropics-s-1-shows-163b-in-half-year-revenue-a-900percent-nrr-and-an-807b-loss-that-mostly-isnt

Tickertrends: https://tickertrends.io/

Replit …
Pregame Your Launch Before Your App Exists (w/ Amanda Bradford) | E2355

27 oktober 2026 · 57 min
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Odoo: https://odoo.com/twist

G2i: https://g2i.co/twist

Rippling: https://rippling.ai/twist

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Today’s show:

Amanda Bradford’s “launch party” for her dating app The League actually extended for months.

She “pre-gamed” the app’s formal launch with months of mixers, boat parties, and free events, where the only ticket required for admission was having the app on your phone.

By launch day, she had a massive wait list, and still just let in 500 people, who ensure maximum buzz (and FOMO).

At LAUNCH’s first-ever Tactical & Practical live event from San Francisco, Amanda walks the crowd through how she built a vetted, two-sided dating marketplace as a solo founder, eventually getting prominent enough to attract the attention of Match Group. (She sold The League for ~$30 million in 2020.)

Hear exclusive tips you won’t get anywhere else, like how Amanda used a “fake paywall” to gauge willingness to pay for subscriptions, and how to time your rate of expansion into new markets.

Plus, an all-new Flashback segment, featuring Alex and Lon looking back at a classic 2017 interview between Jason and Stripe’s Patrick Collison.

Guests

Amanda Bradford on X: https://x.com/amandabradford

Book a Call with Amanda: https://intro.co/amandabradford

The League: https://www.theleague.com/

Patrick Collison on X: https://x.com/patrickc?lang=en

Stripe: https://stripe.com/

Relevant Links:

The League was called "elitist." Its founder says that was never the case (CNBC): https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/20/founder-of-the-league-on-dating-ambition-and-that-viral-ad-campaign.html

Alex Wilhelm’s Cautious Optimism: https://www.cautiousoptimism.news/

TWiST E723: Patrick Collison (2017): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-NepiMQGvY

Timestamps:

0:00 Amanda Bradford on building The League

4:30 Hand-reviewing early applications

6:40 Building an MVP with a rented co-founder

8:56 The VIP approach

13:10 Why Amanda only l…
OpenAI’s $1.25T Raise, Starlink Mobile & Zuck’s Tax Deal | EP 2354

24 oktober 2026 · 1 uur 33 min
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Plaud - https://plaud.ai/twist

Sentry - https://sentry.io/twist

Lightfield - https://lightfield.app

Rippling - https://rippling.ai/twist

Today’s show:

Is OpenAI finally priced correctly? Jason argues that the reported $30 billion raise at a $1.25 trillion valuation is finally “right-sized.” He also says that he’d put money in at that price, while walking through the risks that could still sink the investment.

It’s a Friday all-news episode with Jason and Lon, covering OpenAI’s latest round, SpaceX’s push to become America’s fourth major carrier, Zuck and Meta’s creative move around the proposed California billionaire tax, and some of Lon and Jason’s favorite documentaries.

Plus we’re asking the timely question: who watches the AI watchdogs?

Relevant Links

OpenAI nears up to $30B round at $1.25T valuation, led by UAE investors (CNBC): https://www.cnbc.com/2026/10/22/openai-funding-round-uae-investors.html

Anthropic investors eye a $2T IPO (Nasdaq): https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/move-over-spacex-anthropic-targets-2-trillion-valuation

Uber puts all 30,000 employees on ChatGPT Work (TechCrunch): https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/22/uber-puts-all-30000-employees-on-chatgpt-work/

Telecom stocks fall as SpaceX eyes 80,000 cell sites (Yahoo Finance): https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/telecom-stocks-fall-spacex-eyes-134838815.html

Verizon launches simpler plans and drops activation and upgrade fees (Fox Business): https://foxbusiness.com/markets/verizon-launches-simpler-plans-new-loyalty-program-drops-some-fees

Amazon Leo's launch slips past early 2026 (ITdaily): https://itdaily.com/news/network/amazon-leo-faces-delays/

METR and Redwood Research's write-up on red-teaming OpenAI's agent monitoring: https://metr.org/blog/2026-10-22-red-teaming-openai-agent-monitoring/

Open Philanthropy is now Coefficient Giving: https://coefficientgiving.org/research/the-story-behind-our-new-name/

Court documents show…
We asked 3 VCs: would you invest in Elizabeth Holmes’ next startup? | E2353

22 oktober 2026 · 1 uur 41 min
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DigitalOcean - 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%

Odoo: The all-in-one business platform. Your first app is free! Get started today at https://odoo.com/twist

Thanks to our partners at Rippling! Head to https://rippling.ai/twist and get the only AI built to give you full visibility across your startup and take complex actions across your entire business.

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

Today’s show:

Elizabeth Holmes remains in prison for defrauding Theranos investors, even as she stars in the hit Nathan Fielder/Lance Oppenheim documentary “You Can See Everything.” But we’re asking the real question: After all the very public accusations… the hit pieces in the press and the Hulu drama series picking apart the scandal… would tech investors and VCs be willing to back her NEXT startup, if the numbers were right?

On today’s TWiST roundtable, Jason Calacanis is joined by Sam Lessin (Slow Ventures), Paige Finn Doherty (Behind Genius Ventures), and Jenny Fielding (Everywhere Ventures). In addition to reviews of the movie tech insiders can’t stop talking about, they cover why every seed portfolio needs a little bit of fraud, how diligence scales with check size, having trademark rights to your own voice, and the pro rata rights debate that’s still raging over Valar Atomics’ lawsuit with seed investors Day One Ventures.

Guests

Sam Lessin on X: https://x.com/lessin

Slow Ventures: https://slow.co/

Paige Finn Doherty on X: https://x.com/paigefinnn

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

Jenny Fielding on X: https://x.com/jefielding

Everywhere Ventures: https://www.everywhere.vc/

Relevant Links

OpenSnow: https://opensnow.com/

“You Can See Everything” trai…
Anthropic Gives Away 5% of Its Shares, Clone’s Muscle Robot, ElevenLabs Steals Podcaster's Voice

20 oktober 2026 · 1 uur 34 min
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Today’s show:
Jason can’t stop praising Nathan Fielder’s new A24 hybrid documentary about Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos, “You Can See Everything,” and he’s insisting that Lon check it out before the next podcast. Hear his spoiler-free review, how the film upended his expectations based on Fielder’s previous work, and why Lon also recommends Lance Oppenheim’s HBO Max series “Ren Faire.”
Plus, we’re talking to Clone Robotics co-founder and CEO Dhanush Radhakrishnan about why he thinks robots should not just be humanoid but should look and move precisely like humans. We’re digging deep into how his hydraulic myofiber artificial muscle technology alters and even improves on the pulley-based systems being deployed by competitors, why he thinks the models that power domestic helper-bots will be commoditized, and how quickly he thinks he can put a robo-butler in every American home.
Plus we’re comparing the potential impact of Anthropic’s new Public Benefit Fund vs. Elon Musk’s plan to give every baby a share of SpaceX, and re-considering simulation theory after Odyssey dropped an artificial fruit fly brain into an artificial landscape.
Guest
Dhanush Radhakrishnan on X: https://x.com/dhanushisrad
Clone Robotics: https://clonerobotics.com/
Related Links
“You Can See Everything” trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvW_N5p1q44
“You Can See Everything” on Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/you_can_see_everything
John Carreyrou’s Theranos investigation (Wall Street Journal): https://www.wsj.com/articles/theranos-has-struggled-with-blood-tests-1444881901
“Ren Faire” HBO Max trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHZUVTrrexE
“Nathan for You”: Smokers Allowed clip (Comedy Central): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HttB2fYAm-8
Anthropic: I… Lees meer
Flying Cars, OpenAI Spies, Why AI Isn’t Sticking (Superhuman CEO)

17 oktober 2026 · 1 uur 33 min
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GoDaddy: https://www.godaddy.com/

Today’s show:

Today’s college grads are showing up to work at Jason’s company unable to write three sentences. He’s asking what Shishir Mehrotra of Superhuman, the company behind Grammarly, can do to fix that.

Shishir delves into Superhuman’s reasons for acquiring GPTZero, the most popular AI detector, and the AI notetaker Fathom, and the spreadsheet startup Rows. Plus, how Shishir responds to accusations that Grammarly helps students cheat in the classroom, why writers should disclose when they’re collaborating with an LLM, and Jason's CEO wish list for fresh Grammarly features.

In the news, Tesla demoed its long-awaited Roadster, which used SpaceX thrusters to do some flips and propel itself over five other Teslas… And OpenAI warned staffers that spies may be trying to seduce them in order to steal company secrets… And the shutdown of Character AI prompts Jason to declare: “AI relationships are evil.”

Guests:

Shishir Mehrotra on X: https://x.com/shishirmehrotra Superhuman: https://superhuman.com

Relevant Links:

Rows, the spreadsheet startup Superhuman bought, announces the deal → https://rows.com/blog/post/rows-is-joining-superhuman

Superhuman to acquire GPTZero (Business Wire) → https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260623083788/en/Superhuman-to-Acquire-GPTZero-AI-Authenticity-Platform

Is the Internet AI, GPTZero's live tracker of AI content on Reddit, LinkedIn and X → https://istheinternetai.com

GPTZero AI Vision, the extension that flags AI posts as you browse → https://gptzero.me/ai-vision

Superhuman acquires YC-backed notetaker Fathom (TechCrunch) → https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/14/superhuman-acquires-yc-backed-notetaker-fathom-as-productivity-platforms-push-for-agentic-work/

Grammarly Authorship, which shows how much of your writing …
The Ex-DeepMind Researcher Taking On China’s Open Source AI

15 oktober 2026 · 1 uur
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Paper: https://getpaper.ai/twist

Superhuman: https://superhuman.com/

Odoo: https://Odoo.com/twist

Today’s show:

Misha Laskin of Reflection AI joins Jason to explain why big companies are done renting their AI from closed labs. Enterprises want to keep their data, cut their costs, and tune their models to their unique businesses.

Reflection is launching its first open-weight model, Beam, just three months after acquiring its first big cluster. Misha admits that Beam trails the best Chinese open models by a couple of months, and needs 3 to 4 times fewer tokens to reach the same answer, but nonetheless, the race is on.

PLUS, Misha explains how “reward hacking” led that rogue OpenAI model to break out of its test sandbox and steal the answers from Hugging Face's servers. The model solved the problem, just not the way anyone intended.

There’s simply no way a few hundred safety researchers at closed labs can catch every flaw; open source is how software has always been made secure. It's also why he wants America to lead in open models again.

So how close is America to catching up to the Chinese open source leaders? Watch this brand new TWiST and find out.

Guests:

Misha Laskin on X: https://x.com/MishaLaskin

Reflection AI: https://reflection.ai/

Relevant Links:

Introducing Beam, Reflection's first open model (Reflection AI) → https://reflection.ai/blog/introducing-beam

Reflection AI unveils Beam as an open answer to Chinese labs (Semafor) → https://www.semafor.com/article/10/05/2026/reflection-ai-unveils-an-open-source-answer-to-chinese-labs

Cursor's Composer 2 coding model, built on an open model (VentureBeat) → https://venturebeat.com/technology/cursors-new-coding-model-composer-2-is-here-it-beats-claude-opus-4-6-but

micro1 passes $1 billion annual run rate, mentioned by Jason → https://www.einnews.com/pr_news/949082966/micro1-end-of-q3-update

Hackers heat French supermarket fridges, sparking fires and spoilin…
The Gadget That's Better in Crowds Than Your Phone + Ring’s Founder Before Amazon Bought It | E2349

13 oktober 2026 · 1 uur 20 min
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Plaud: https://plaud.ai/twist

Northwest Registered Agent: https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twistdomain

NetSuite: https://netsuite.ai/twist

The Conservation Fund: https://conservationfund.org

Today’s show:

At packed concerts, festivals, and stadiums, your phone gets WORSE with every person who shows up. Totem gets better.

Carter Fowler of Totem joins Alex to explain how his screen-free compass points you straight to your friends without relying on cell towers. Find out why Carter says Apple will never ship this in an iPhone, and why kids, ski patrols, and blind users have become some of his most loyal fans.

PLUS, Lon and Alex dig into the archives for Jason's 2017 CES interview with Ring founder Jamie Siminoff, a year before Amazon bought the company. Jamie explains how a doorbell he couldn't hear in his garage became Ring, and why a strong mission is "cheating" when it comes to keeping a team focused. Then he tells Jason he wants to take Ring public, not sell it. Ironic because about a year later, Amazon bought it. And get ready for some hot takes on neighborhood license-plate cameras, years before the anti-Flock backlash.

Guests:

Carter Fowler on X: https://x.com/Carter_S_Fowler

Totem: https://totemlabs.com

Jamie Siminoff on X: https://x.com/JamieSiminoff

Ring: https://ring.com

Relevant Links:

Totem Compass, the offline friend-finding compass → https://totemlabs.com

Totem closes its $1.3M pre-seed round (Business Wire) → https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250212385814/en/Totem-Closes-%241.3M-in-Pre-Seed-Funding-to-Scale-Operations-for-Explosive-Demand

Totem's community crowdfunding round → https://wefunder.com/totemlabs

Totem's record Lost Lands deployment last year (Business Wire) → https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251009622355/en

The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton Christensen, mentioned by Alex → https://www.amazon.com/dp/1633691780

Original TWiST Interview with Jamie from 2017 …
Jason Reacts To Japanese Founder Pitches + Fireside Chat With Yuki Shirato

10 oktober 2026 · 1 uur 25 min
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Lightfield: https://lightfield.app

Rippling: https://Rippling.ai/twist

Upwork: https://upwork.com

Today’s show:

AssetHub built an AI agent that recreates licensed characters in 3D while respecting copyright rules... But Jason says he needs to think BIGGER. 11 founders pitched their companies to Jason and Yuki Shirato of Techstars Tokyo at our Osaka event this week, and neither investor held back.

Find out why Jason says Seekr feels more like a vitamin than a painkiller, and needs to ditch the press mentions from their deck. Plus, a vital lesson for founders: if everyone already knows about the problem you're solving, investors expect a tight solution and business plan. Truly novel business ideas get more leeway. Japan's startup community is booming, with many recent grads bailing on lifelong gigs at major corporations to start companies. But here's why Yuki says the fear of failure is still holding back progress.

Guests:

Yuki Shirato on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yuki-shirato

Techstars Tokyo: https://www.techstars.com/accelerators/tokyo

Founder Pitches:

Seekr: https://seekrai.global/product

Arabat: https://arabat.it/

AssetHub: https://assethub.io/

CRAZIA: https://crazia.co/

JuJuJuu: https://jujujuu.com/

JAPANMEDIA: https://lp.japanmedia.ai/

Tsuin AI: https://www.tsuin.ai

Rumi Light: https://www.rumilight.jp/

GENCHI: https://www.toraru.me/en

TattvaSilicon: https://tattvasilicon.com/

Mimi AI: https://nihongo-chat-ruby.vercel.app/onboarding

Relevant Links:

Founder University Japan, Jason's pre-accelerator program with JETRO → https://japan.founder.university/

Techstars Tokyo announces its Class of 2026 → https://www.techstars.com/newsroom/techstars-tokyo-accelerator-announces-class-of-2026

Yuki Shirato on why Japan should be on every founder's radar (Techstars) → https://www.techstars.com/blog/insights-and-trends/should-japan-be-on-your-radar-as-a-founder

How Techstars Tokyo is helping mak…
What VCs Really Think About Personal AI Agents | E2347

8 oktober 2026 · 1 uur 19 min
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Quo: https://www.quo.com/perks/twist

Today’s show:

A personal AI agent that’s still invite-only just hit a $10 billion valuation. Guest host Deedy Das of Menlo Ventures is joined by Kanu Gulati of Khosla Ventures, Chris Farmer of SignalFire, and Sheel Mohnot of Better Tomorrow Ventures to debate whether Instinct can beat Meta’s Muse, what they actually use their own agents for, and what breaks when everyone’s agent makes the same move.

Plus we’re also talking about OpenAI’s math breakthroughs, the Factory vs. Cognition fight, and whether SaaS is still worth funding. Catch the whole debate on this week’s VC roundtable.

Guests:

Deedy Das on X: https://x.com/deedydas

Menlo Ventures: https://menlovc.com

Kanu Gulati on X: https://x.com/KanuGulati

Khosla Ventures: https://www.khoslaventures.com

Chris Farmer on X: https://x.com/chriswfarmer

SignalFire: https://www.signalfire.com

Sheel Mohnot on X: https://x.com/pitdesi

Better Tomorrow Ventures: https://www.btv.vc

Relevant Links:

OpenAI’s 722 math manuscripts from an unreleased internal model → https://github.com/openai/math

OpenAI’s earlier Navier–Stokes Millennium Prize result → https://openai.com/index/navier-stokes-solution/

Pramaana Labs, the Khosla-backed startup turning tax rules into provable logic → https://pramaanalabs.ai

Logos Research, the Imperial College spinout verifying AI-written financial code → https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/articles/2026/logos-research-plans-to-make-ai-reasoning-trustworthy-in-high-stakes-environments/

EvenUp, SignalFire’s AI company for personal injury law → https://www.evenuplaw.com/

WindBorne Systems, the Khosla-backed weather balloon company Kanu mentioned → https://windbornesystems.com

Gokul Rajaram’s X Post: https://x.com/gokulr/status/2107851356019290569?s=20

micro1, the AI …
Jason Mentors The Next Generation + Why AI Is Bad at Teaching (Aristotle Interview) | E2346

7 oktober 2026 · 1 uur 11 min
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Sentry: https://sentry.io/twist

Plaud: https://plaud.ai/twist

Today’s show:

The smarter AI gets, the more it just does the work for you, and the less helpful it becomes as a tutor.

Shan Reddy of Aristotle joins Jason to demo a voice-first tutor built to run a session the way a $200-an-hour human tutor would. We also dive into why frontier models are trained to hand you answers rather than build real understanding.

PLUS, in Ask Jason, an incoming Fordham student (Jason’s alma mater!) wants to prepare for a career in finance. Plus, David from NYU calls back and wants to discuss what everyone would do with $500K in free money. Then, why does Jason think the Doomerism is coming from inside the AI labs?

Guests:

Shan Reddy on X: https://x.com/rshanreddy

Aristotle: https://www.heyaristotle.com/

Relevant Links:

Shoe Dog by Phil Knight → https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoe_Dog

Something Like an Autobiography by Akira Kurosawa → https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Something_Like_an_Autobiography

Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson, which Dovid is reading now → https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein:_His_Life_and_Universe

Gartner, Jason's example of firms doing research on behalf of corporations → https://www.gartner.com/

"Religious Scholars Met With Anthropic. What They Heard Stunned Them." by Elizabeth Dias, The New York Times, Sept. 29, 2026; the story Lon brings up → https://www.inquirer.com/news/nation-world/religious-leaders-met-with-anthropic-20260930.html

David Sacks accuses Anthropic of a "regulatory capture strategy based on fear-mongering"; the line Lon references (Bloomberg Law) → https://news.bloomberglaw.com/artificial-intelligence/anthropic-is-running-a-strategy-based-on-fear-mongering-sacks

Aristotle's $5M seed round (PR Newswire) → https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/aristotle-secures-5m-to-replace-the-chatbot-with-hi…
Inside The Startup Building Uncensored AI (Abliteration AI) | EP 2345

3 oktober 2026 · 53 min
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Northwest Registered Agent: https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twistdomain

Odoo: https://odoo.com/twist

Plaud: https://plaud.ai/twist

Today’s show:

What can AI do with the guardrails OFF? Devon Thomas of Abliteration.ai thinks defenders should have access to the same kinds of tools, rather than having one hand tied behind their backs.

Then, on Ask Jason, learn what AI means for the billable hour from a legal-tech founder. PLUS, are AI microdramas a real ecosystem or a fad, and does AI finally make solo founders fundable?

Guests:

Devon Thomas on X: https://x.com/founderengineer

Abliteration: https://abliteration.ai/

Relevant Links:

Abliteration.ai on a16z speedrun — the accelerator Jason congratulated Devon on → https://speedrun.a16z.com/companies/abliteration

TechCrunch: "Abliteration.ai is making a business out of removing AI guardrails" — the coverage behind the recent attention → https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/03/abliteration-ai-is-making-a-business-out-of-removing-ai-guardrails/

Abliteration.ai press page → https://abliteration.ai/press

Anthropic Frontier Red Team: "GLM-5.3 and the spread of advanced cyber capabilities" — the blog Devon cited on how capable abliterated GLM-5.3 is → https://www.anthropic.com/research/glm-5-3-and-the-spread-of-advanced-cyber-capabilities

CNBC: Trump's executive order renaming AI "super intelligence," signed the same day → https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/29/trump-ai-super-intelligence.html

Nextgov/FCW: OpenAI agents accessed Census and SEC data — detail on the dozens of organizations OpenAI notified → https://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2026/09/openai-says-its-advanced-models-may-have-gone-after-government-websites/416250/

Financial Times: "AI wrecking ball fractures billable-hour fee model"

Seedance 2.5 — ByteDance's video model Bruno asked about → https://technode.com/2026/07/31/bytedance-launches-seedance-2-5-video-generation-model/

…
Justin Kan & Brian Chesky: The Rejections That Built Twitch and Airbnb | E2344

1 oktober 2026 · 1 uur 18 min
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This Week In Startups is made possible by: Lees meer

Plaud: https://plaud.ai/twist

CLA: https://www.claconnect.com/withyou

Sentry: https://sentry.io/twist

Lightfield: https://lightfield.app

Today’s show:

Google once interviewed the entire Justin.tv (now Twitch) team and then walked away from an acquisition deal, saying they weren’t good enough. Seven investors passed on buying 10% of Airbnb for $150,000, a stake pegged at roughly $9.25 billion today.

Lon Harris and Alex Wilhelm revisit classic TWiST interviews with Justin Kan of Twitch and Brian Chesky of Airbnb to find out what those founders understood that the market didn't.

PLUS, how did a box of cereal win over Paul Graham and get Airbnb into Y Combinator?

Flashback Guests:

Justin Kan on X: https://x.com/justinkan

Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/

Justin Kan (@justinkan) on X

Brian Chesky on X: https://x.com/bchesky

AirBnB: https://www.airbnb.com/

Relevant Links:

TWiST E900: Justin Kan, co-founder of Justin.tv, Twitch & Atrium (Feb 5, 2019) → https://thisweekinstartups.com/episodes/L3DP8VCE12s

TWiST E1735: Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky on early rejection, customer focus & AI (May 4, 2023) → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZ-BjJZxNoA

Halo 3: the game that flooded Mahalo with traffic → https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_3

Weblogs, Inc.: Jason's blog network, home of Engadget → https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weblogs,_Inc.

Instinct: the invite-only personal AI agent from founder Noah Shinn → https://www.instinct.co/

AMD to acquire World Labs for $8.2B in stock; Li becomes AMD chief scientist (Bloomberg) → https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-09-28/amd-to-buy-fei-fei-li-s-world-labs-ai-startup-for-8-2-billion

Lovable: where Lon says he'd rebuild a bad app in two hours → https://lovable.dev/

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

Paul Graham on X → https://x.com/paulg

Obama O's and Cap'n McCain's: the cereal that funded Airbnb → https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbnb#History

Stripe: what Paul Graha…
Jason’s Put a $5K Bounty on His Dream Chrome Extension | E2338

28 september 2026 · 41 min
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This Week In Startups is made possible by: Lees meer

Every.io: https://every.io/

Northwest Registered Agent: https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twistdomain

Sentry: https://sentry.io/twist

Today’s show:

A product that would have cost $500,000 to build in 2006 now costs less than a used car. Jason put up $5,000 on an idea he'd been sitting on for 20 years, and so far, we’ve received dozens of amazing submissions from vibecode experts.

See how well the Top 3 demos fare, and which app was so good, Jason’s already thinking about spinning it off into a startup.

PLUS, an unhoused founder calls in asking how to raise money for not one but two pre-revenue startups? Hear Jason and Lon’s advice.

Submissions:

Submission 1 — https://annotated.wtf By Robert

Submission 2 — https://annotated.bytetalk.ai/feed By Alan Shiflett

Alan on X: https://x.com/alanshiflett

Submission 3 — https://anotated.com/ By Chirag Asarpota

Chirag on X: https://x.com/ChiragAsarpota

Relevant Links:

annotated.com bounty brief — https://annotated.lovable.app/

All active TWiST bounties — https://www.thisweekinstartups.com/bo...

The other open $5,000 bounty: a sidebar companion app for podcasts — https://www.notion.so/launch1/5K-Boun...

Timestamps:

00:00:00 Why Jason bought annotated.com

00:00:33 The original idea: highlight any sentence on the web and dispute it

00:01:25 The rules: the code is open source, and Jason can cancel any time

00:02:06 Submission 1: Robert's annotated.wtf

00:10:08 Every.io - For all of your incorporation, banking, payroll, benefits, accounting, taxes or other back-office administration needs, visit https://every.io

00:12:13 Submission 1 Scoring

00:12:28 Submission 2: Allan Shifflet's take

00:13:56 What it got right: profiles, follower counts, trending topics

00:16:40 Submission 3: annotaed.com, and buying the typo domain on purpose

00:20:20 Northwest Registered Agent - Got a new business idea? Northwest Registered Agent helps you bring it to life. Get a free …
The 5 Companies Apple Must Buy

28 september 2026 · 50 min
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This Week In Startups is made possible by: Lees meer

PayPal: https://paypal.com/business

Northwest Registered Agent: https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twistdomain

Odoo: https://Odoo.com/twist

Today’s show:

Wall Street suspects new Apple CEO John Ternus may do something predecessor Tim Cook almost never did: writing a huge check.

So Jason and Lon are playing “fantasy draft” with Apple’s balance sheet, choosing five real companies to acquire over five “rounds.” Disney buys them a ton of IP and unlocks theme park synergies. Sony gets them a gaming console and massive anime distribution. Boston Dynamics buys them lots of robots, while Etched nets them cheaper inference. So many options!

Then, we chat with Stacy Salvi of The90. Her wearable pendant tells you exactly how much sun damage you’re accumulating, long before you start to burn.

Guest

The90: https://the90.com/

Stacy Salvi on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stacysalvi/

Relevant Links

John Ternus becomes Apple CEO: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/04/tim-cook-to-become-apple-executive-chairman-john-ternus-to-become-apple-ceo/

Analyst: Ternus could bring bigger acquisitions: https://9to5mac.com/?p=1065466

“Grok Has Money” meme origin: https://x.com/gmfarcaster/status/2026318035103965414

Sunlight linked with lower COVID-19 deaths: https://www.ed.ac.uk/news/2021/sunlight-linked-with-lower-covid-19-deaths

Reid Hoffman: “If there aren’t any typos in this essay, we launched too late”: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/arent-any-typos-essay-we-launched-too-late-reid-hoffman/

Draft Picks

ElevenLabs: https://elevenlabs.io/

Disney: https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/

Sony Group: https://www.sony.com/en/

Crunchyroll: https://www.crunchyroll.com/

Boston Dynamics: https://bostondynamics.com/

Perplexity: https://www.perplexity.ai/

DigitalOcean: https://www.digitalocean.com/

Etched: https://www.etched.com/

Rivian: https://rivian.com/

Lucid Motors: https://lucidmotors.com/

Superhuman: https://superhum…
A rogue OpenAI agent hacked Australia’s government. Does this matter? | E2342

26 september 2026 · 1 uur 26 min
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This Week In Startups is made possible by: Lees meer

Lightfield: https://lightfield.app

Paper: https://getpaper.ai/twist

The Conservation Fund: https://conservationfund.org/

Plaud: https://plaud.ai/twist

Athena: https://www.athena.com/jcal

Today’s show:

An OpenAI agent breached Australia's Medicare statistics portal in June, and it took 84 days for the Frontier Lab to publicly acknowledge it. Jason and Lon dig into whether this is an important cautionary tale about alignment, or if PM Anthony Albanese looking to join the AI conversation.

Then Bryant Chou of Ploy joins to explain skipping pre-seed and seed entirely to raise $27M, and why he’s taking his time to build his all-in-one agentic solution for running businesses.

Learn why Google is launching four TPUs into orbit for Project Suncatcher. PLUS, how many robots a week is Tesla now shipping with Optimus, and Jensen Huang told Ezra Klein basic math no longer matters. Is he right? Can we forget long division, at last?

Guests:

Bryant Chou on X: https://x.com/bryantchou

PloyAI: https://ploy.ai/

Relevant Links:

Ploy raises $27M seed led by First Round Capital and Y Combinator (Founderland) → https://www.founderland.ai/articles/webflow-co-founder-launches-ai-marketing-platform-with-27m-s-mqj8o952

OpenAI's $2M-in-tokens offer to every YC startup(TechCrunch via Yahoo) → https://finance.yahoo.com/sectors/technology/articles/sam-altman-makes-mic-drop-212302858.html

Original Bloomberg report on the a16z probe → https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-17/andreessen-horowitz-focus-of-doj-probe-over-board-directors

Google: Project Suncatcher's first test launch on SpaceX's Transporter-18 → https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/models-and-research/google-research/google-project-suncatcher-facts/

ABC News (Australia): full timeline, from the June 18 breach to OpenAI's Sept. 10 email → https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-24/ai-agent-accessed-australian-government-site-pm-says/107189078

Ando emerges from stealth…
VCs Would Bet on Open-Source AI Over OpenAI and Anthropic | E2341

24 september 2026 · 1 uur 27 min
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Northwest Registered Agent: https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twistdomain

Odoo: https://odoo.com/twist

Rippling: https://rippling.ai/twist

Plaud: https://plaud.ai/twist

Harmonic: https://harmonic.ai/twist

Today’s show:

Anthropic and OpenAI released cheaper models on the same day with Claude Opus 5.5 and GPT-6, and these VCs would still bet on open source. Jason brings on Dave McClure of Practical Venture Capital, Jeff Clavier of Uncork Capital, and Jenny Fielding of Everywhere Ventures to discuss the argument for open-weight models over the frontier labs.

Learn why median seed valuations have more than tripled since 2017. Why does Dave say it's a buyer's market for secondaries right now? PLUS, does Meta's Muse leave any room for Instinct, and why are fintech and healthcare suddenly out of favor?

Guests:

Dave McClure on X: https://x.com/davemcclure?lang=en

Practical Venture Capital: https://practicalvc.com/

Jeff Clavier on X: https://x.com/jeff

Uncorked Capital: https://uncorkcapital.com/

Jenny Fiedling on X: https://x.com/jefielding

Everywhere Ventures: https://www.everywhere.vc/

Relevant Links:

Instinct reportedly seeking $1B at a $10B valuation (report via The Information) → https://cryptobriefing.com/ai-assistant-startup-instinct-targets-10b-valuation-in-new-funding-talks-report/

Meta's Muse, the agent the panel sees as Instinct's biggest threat, now on Mac → https://aiweekly.co/alerts/meta-ships-muse-for-mac-agent-now-acts-in-native-macos-apps

Trump calls Jensen Huang onstage at the All-In Summit → https://thenextweb.com/news/trump-phoned-jensen-huang-onstage-at-the-all-in-summit-to-call-ai-fear-a-hoax

AI-assisted intel error nearly triggered a US intercept of a Chinese ship (CNN via gCaptain) → https://gcaptain.com/ai-error-nearly-triggered-u-s-intercept-of-chinese-ship-cnn-reports/

Bernie Sanders' 50% AI sovereign wealth fund bill + Altman meeting (Fortune) → https://fortune.com/2026/06/18…
Elon's New Hyperloop, Trump's AI Rename, and a Model That Won't Talk | E2340

21 september 2026 · 1 uur 10 min
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This Week In Startups is made possible by: Lees meer

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

DigitalOcean: https://do.co/twist

Lightfield: https://lightfield.app

Plaud: https://plaud.ai/twist

Today’s show:

Elon revives the Hyperloop, promising a 30-minute commute between Austin and San Antonio. It's the kind of project that could reshape how Texans think about getting between two major cities entirely. Then, Jason and Lon explain why this pitch is different from the other Boring Company tunnels.

Learn why President Trump wants to rename artificial intelligence itself and launch an "AI Force." It's a move that could reshape how the government talks about AI policy going forward. PLUS, a new startup's model refuses to write a single word of text, and it is 5 to 18 times faster with better accuracy. It's a completely different approach to how AI agents make decisions, and it might be a preview of where the industry heads next.

Relevant Links:

"Elon Musk's latest Boring Company pitch involves a Hyperloop between Austin and San Antonio" → https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/20/elon-musks-latest-boring-company-pitch-involves-a-hyperloop-between-austin-and-san-antonio/

The Boring Company → https://www.boringcompany.com/

Elon Musk's original 2013 Hyperloop white paper → https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/blog_images/hyperloop-alpha.pdf

Trump's Truth Social post proposing "Superior/Extreme/Supreme Intelligence" and announcing an AI Force and AI czar → https://www.unite.ai/trump-proposes-renaming-artificial-intelligence-announces-ai-force/

TechCrunch: "Trump says it's time to rebrand AI with a new name — and he's also creating an AI Force" → https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/19/trump-suggests-rebranding-ai-with-a-new-name-says-hes-also-creating-an-ai-force/

Vercel AI Open vs Closed Source Volume Chart → https://vercel.com/ai-gateway/leaderboards/models

TypeSafe AI — makers of Jev, the "System One Model" → https://typesafe.ai/

TypeSafe AI blog: "Introducing System One Models …
Hugging Face Co-Founder on Open-Source, Microduck, and NVIDIA | E2339

18 september 2026 · 1 uur 34 min
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This Week In Startups is made possible by: Lees meer

Superhuman: https://superhuman.com/

Paypal: https://paypal.com/business

Odoo: https://odoo.com/twist

Plaud: https://plaud.ai/twist

Harmonic: https://harmonic.ai/twist

Today’s show:

Hugging Face built a $399 open-source robot duck as a side quest, and sold 16,000 units off a single tweet. Co-founder Thomas Wolf joins Jason and Lon to explain Microduck happened, why storage is the company's real business, and what it felt like to get hacked by OpenAI's agents.

Jason takes apart Gavin Newsom's new AI "kill switch" executive order: if these models are so dangerous, why not start with the same KYC every bank already requires? PLUS, Snap’s new AI-integrated glasses could be a game-changer.

Guests:

Thomas Wolf on X: https://x.com/Thom_Wolf

Hugging Face: https://huggingface.co/

Relevant Links:

Hugging Face — https://huggingface.co/

Microduck — https://pollen-robotics.com/microduck/

Pollen Robotics — https://pollen-robotics.com/

OpenAI: the Hugging Face incident and the road ahead — https://openai.com/index/hugging-face-incident-and-the-road-ahead/

Governor Newsom's executive order — https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/californias-newsom-issues-executive-order-to-weigh-ai-oversight-including-kill-switch-3a98040f

Anthropic Wet Lab — https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/18/anthropic-quietly-sets-up-biology-lab-as-it-ramps-ai-drug-program-report.html

Lucid and Bolt to deploy 25,000 autonomous EVs across Europe — https://electrek.co/2026/09/17/lucid-bolt-25000-autonomous-evs-europe/

Snap opens pre-orders for Specs at $2,195 — https://www.specs.com/

Ray-Ban Meta Display — the $799 comparison https://www.meta.com/ai-glasses/

Clavicular at All-In Summit — https://x.com/clavicular/status/2099994778616348811?s=20

Physical: 100 (the Korean original) → https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical:_100

Bad Therapy — https://www.abigailshrier.com/

Full Show Notes and Transcript from Pluad: https://plaud.ai/twist

Timestamps:

0:00 Guest: Tho…
90% of AI prototypes never reach production (w/ Temporal's Samar Abbas) | AI Basics

16 september 2026 · 19 min
Afspelen

The TWiST AI Basics series is made possible by Google for Startups!
Build context-aware AI workflows using DeepMind models and orchestration tools with Google for Startups' new Startup technical guide on generative media. Get the guide here: https://goo.gle/technical_guide Lees meer

Today's show:
The demo works, the vibes are immaculate, but then the app falls apart the second real users touch it. On today's AI Basics, Temporal co-founder and CEO Samar Abbas says the problem isn't with the model at all. You're missing a harness, the layer that keeps an AI agent's work durable, secure, and recoverable if/when something breaks.
Temporal's durable execution platform is used by major companies from OpenAI to Stripe to Netflix, and helps to make their long-running software reliable and interruption-free.
On AI Basics, he explains why so many AI-coded prototypes die in the imagineering stage, before ever hitting production. Plus he walks Jason through Temporal's live dashboard, to show how it gives developers full visibility into what their agents are doing at every step.
Guest and Relevant Links:
Samar Abbas on X: https://x.com/SamarAtTemporal
Temporal: https://temporal.io/
Temporal raises $550M at a $12.55B valuation: https://temporal.io/blog/temporal-raises-usd550m-series-e-at-usd12-55b-valuation-ai
GeekWire: Samar Abbas on the "massive platform shift" in AI: https://www.geekwire.com/2026/temporal-ceo-samar-abbas-on-the-massive-platform-shift-in-ai-fueling-the-startups-5b-valuation/
Temporal expands Google Cloud partnership: https://temporal.io/blog/temporal-expands-google-cloud-partnership-with-pay-as-you-go-pricing
Timestamps:
0:00 Why every startup needs an AI harness
2:12 Why 90% of AI prototypes never reach production
4:16 What happens when an agent crashes mid-task
7:00 A look at Temporal's dashboard
13:02 OK but what is a "harness" exactly?
15:30 When to graduate an agent from laptop to production
17:44 Organizing agents into teams

Subscribe to This Week in Startups on…
Ask Jason: AI Extinction, Grok's Rogue Meme Coin & Weed Farms as Data Centers | E2337

14 september 2026 · 1 uur 11 min
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This Week In Startups is made possible by: Lees meer

Quo: http://quo.com/TWiST

The Conservation Fund: https://conservationfund.org

CLA: https://www.claconnect.com/withyou

Today's show:

A 27-year-old Anthropic researcher quit last week warning that AI could cause human extinction, and by Friday, a caller's 76-year-old mother was texting her in a panic. Jason's answer: the labs are already shipping the safeguards Doomers say don't exist.

On an all live calls episode of TWiST, learn about the AI implications Jason is actually scared of, and why it involves a terrorist cell and a thousand cheap drones. PLUS, who is liable when one AI prompts another AI into launching a meme coin, and can a 1.5-3 megawatt cannabis facility be converted into a data center?

Relevant Links:

Anthropic Resignee — https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/anthropic-safety-researcher-resigned-warning-rapid-ai-development-gamb-rcna596767

OpenAI's Navier-Stokes claim— https://www.science.org/content/article/how-ai-math-breakthrough-ignited-controversy

CNBC: Tristan Buckmaster's challenge to the claim — https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/09/openai-navier-stokes-math-problem-solved.html

NVIDIA GB200 Grace Blackwell —https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/data-center/gb200-nvl72/

Composio's walkthrough of how Grok Bot actually works — https://composio.dev/content/guide-to-frok-bot

Timestamps:

0:00 (Question) Jim, from the midterm Republican convention floor: is AI really going to kill us all — and is local AI the mitigation?

5:31 Where Terminator 2's logic breaks down

9:42 The threat Jason is actually scared of: slaughter drones and murder bots

9:54 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

10:05 (Question) Michael Lee, who's responsible when one AI prompts another into launching a meme coin?

17:32 (Question) Lyda, calling from Greece: can an independent AI ecosystem still exist

19:03 Th…
The Pentagon Wants Equity in AI Startups | E2336

12 september 2026 · 1 uur 13 min
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This Week In Startups is made possible by: Lees meer

DigitalOcean: https://do.co/twist

Odoo: https://odoo.com/twist

Upwork: https://upwork.com

Today's show:

The Pentagon is reportedly in talks to lend AI cloud startup Fluidstack $5. billion, and Jason thinks the real story isn't the loan itself. It's the US government owning equity in private AI companies, and competing directly with venture capital.

Plus returning friend of the pod Tibo Louis-Lucas shows us how he runs seven companies with fewer than 10 people by stacking AI agents. Can a few $200/month AI subscriptions really do the work of an entire marketing team? Tibo seems to think so.

Plus it's Off-Duty Friday, so Jason and Lon are reviewing some current streaming favorites, and commemorating the 25th anniversary of 9/11 with some personal stories.

Check out the full summary and transcript of today's episode from Plaud: https://plaud.ai/twist

Guests:

Tibo Louis-Lucas on X: https://x.com/tibo_maker

Squad: https://squad.so/

Relevant Links:

Fluidstack: https://www.fluidstack.io

Google-Fluidstack warrants deal details: https://cointelegraph.com/news/google-acquires-5-4-stake-in-bitcoin-mining-company-cipher-mining-in-ai-deal

Center for Public Integrity: Solyndra timeline: https://publicintegrity.org/politics/missed-warning-signs-a-solyndra-timeline/

The Hill: Energy Dept. loses $139M in Fisker auto loan default: https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/191258-energy-dept-loses-139-million-in-auto-loan-gone-bad/

Apple iPhone Duo: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/09/apple-unveils-iphone-duo/

Apple Mac Studio: https://www.apple.com/mac-studio/

Sonos: https://www.sonos.com/

Amazon Fire TV: https://www.amazon.com/b?node=8521791011

UniFi: https://www.ui.com/

Lanterns trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UIBOsuUwc4

Dark Matter Season 2 trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhB6_1UbR7s

"Robin" biography by Dave Itzkoff: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1627794247

What Dreams May Come trailer: htt…
Becki DeGraw on founder vesting, advisor equity & the 4-term-sheet play

10 september 2026 · 23 min
Afspelen

This Week In Startups is made possible by:
Wilson Sonsini: https://www.wsgr.com/en/ Lees meer

Today's show:
One of YouTube's three co-founders left for grad school and walked away with a fraction of what his partners made on the Google sale. Becki DeGraw of Wilson Sonsini joins Jason for Startup Legal Basics to explain the vesting schedule behind that gap, and why you want one even if you never take a dollar of venture money.
Learn how VCs actually respond when a founder says "I've already put in four years," and the exact language Jason gives founders to turn one term sheet into three. PLUS, why is an inactive advisor still vesting your equity, and who wrote those performance milestones?
Guests:
Becki DeGraw on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebecca-degraw-639bbb62/
Wilson Sonsini: https://www.wsgr.com/en/
Relevant Links:
Becki DeGraw — partner in WSGR's San Francisco office — https://www.wsgr.com/en/people/becki-degraw.html
TechCrunch broke the YouTube story— https://techcrunch.com/2006/10/09/google-has-acquired-youtube/
Sequoia Capital — https://www.sequoiacap.com/
Roelof Botha — led Sequoia's YouTube investment and later ran the firm globally → https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roelof_Botha
ESOP / employee stock option pool — https://thisweekinstartups.com/basics
Founder & advisor equity documents — https://www.wsgr.com/en/services/practice-areas/corporate/emerging-companies.html
Timestamps: 0:06 Becki DeGraw on why founder equity is "near and dear" to every founder
1:53 Founder vesting explained
3:49 Why you want vesting even if you never take VC money
6:05 "Why do I have to vest again?"
7:32 Leverage is a function of how many offers you have
10:36 The exact script for landing a second term sheet
14:37 Don't let an AI write your three-page vesting schedule
18:19 Character in Silicon Valley: it's a small world after all
19:49 Take the emotion out of it

Subscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.com
Check out the TWIST500: https://www.twi…
Did OpenAI Steal the Navier-Stokes Solution? | E2335

9 september 2026 · 1 uur 21 min
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Northwest Registered Agent: https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twistdomain

NetSuite: https://www.netsuite.ai/twist

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Plaud: https://plaud.ai/twist

Today's show:

An Anthropic researcher quit this week, saying both leading labs are gambling with everyone's lives. His coworker chimed in and predicts there is a greater than 10% chance that AI will end humanity IN THE NEXT 10 YEARS. Jason and Lon take it to Yohei Nakajima of Untapped Capital, Ben Lerer of Lerer Hippeau, and Rebecca Lynn of Canvas Prime, who cannot decide whether it is the greatest PR strategy in history or some kind of mass psychosis.

Learn why Jason says founders should never hand a frontier lab their proprietary data, whether or not they're offered free credits. PLUS, who really solved Navier-Stokes, and what does the OpenAI–Buckmaster fight mean for anyone doing real work inside ChatGPT or Claude?

Guests:

Yohei Nakajima on X: https://x.com/yoheinakajima

Untapped Capital: https://untapped.vc/

Ben Lerer on X: https://x.com/BenjLerer

Lerer Hippeau: https://www.lererhippeau.com/

Rebecca Lynn on X: https://x.com/VCRebecca

Canvas Prime: https://www.canvas.vc/

Relevant Links:

Jacob Coxon quits Anthropic - "gambling with our lives" https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/09/gambling-with-our-lives-anthropic-researcher-quits-warns-against-self-improving-ai/

Evan Hubinger, Anthropic's Alignment Science lead, on X: >10% odds within a decade — https://x.com/EvanHub/status/2097497037956891126

Future of Life Institute — the 2015 Puerto Rico AI safety conference Jason asks Lon to pull up → https://futureoflife.org/

Meta debuts Muse (Axios) —https://www.axios.com/2026/09/08/meta-debuts-muse-personal-ai-agent

Harmonic — https://harmonic.ai/twist

China blocks Meta's Manus acquisition (CNBC) —https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/27/meta-manus-china-blocks-acquisition-ai-startup.html

OpenAI fought dirty— https://techcrunch.com/2026/09…
Dr. Mark Hyman on Function Health & GLP-1 microdosing | E2334

4 september 2026 · 58 min
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Odoo: https://odoo.com/twist

Northwest Registered Agent: https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twistdomain

Rippling: https://rippling.ai/twist

Today's show:

Your doctor almost certainly isn't testing your insulin. Dr. Mark Hyman sits down with Jason to explain the broken system that Function is fixing, and what 100 million biomarkers say about how sick America actually is.

Learn why insulin beats blood sugar as an early warning for TKTKTK. Why might "normal" lab ranges be unreliable? PLUS, how does an expert like Dr. Hyman feel about GLP-1s and psychedelics?

Guests:

Dr. Mark Hyman on X: https://x.com/drmarkhyman

Function: https://www.functionhealth.com/

Relevant Links:

The Dr. Hyman Show — https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-dr-hyman-show/id1382804627

Function pricing — https://www.functionhealth.com/pricing

Ezra — the full-body MRI company Function acquired https://ezra.com/

Galleri (GRAIL) — the multi-cancer early detection blood test — https://www.galleri.com/

Tufts / JACC study — the source of the "93% of Americans have metabolic dysfunction" — https://now.tufts.edu/2022/07/05/only-7-american-adults-have-good-cardiometabolic-health

American College of Cardiology — https://www.acc.org/

Dr. Jorge Plutzky — https://www.health.harvard.edu/authors/jorge-plutzky-md

OpenEvidence — https://www.openevidence.com/

Stanford Metabolic Psychiatry Clinic — https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2022/11/metabolic-psychiatry.html

Stanford Medicine on the ibogaine findings → https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2024/01/ibogaine-ptsd.html

Texas SB 2308 — the $50M state investment in ibogaine trials — https://www.texastribune.org/2026/03/31/texas-ibogaine-research-clinical-trials-psychedelics/

Timestamps:

0:00 What Function actually is

6:43 Healthspan vs. sick care

10:16 Odoo - The all-in-one business platform. Your first app is free! Get started today at https://Odoo.com/twist

11:32 A $300 vitamin D t…
Becki DeGraw on spinouts, IP licensing & clean exits | Wilson Sonsini Startup Legal Basics

3 september 2026 · 18 min
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Wilson Sonsini Lees meer

Today's show:
Spinouts are everywhere right now, and most founders get the cap table wrong. Jason sits down with Becki DeGraw, partner at Wilson Sonsini, to break down how to do it right, starting with his 80/20 rule for splitting the new cap table and why letting the old company keep too much of it kills your ability to raise.
Becki also covers the legal side: who owns the IP, non-competes between the two companies, and the trap founders fall into when they're still on the old board. PLUS, the one question every Series A investor will ask.
Guests:
Becki DeGraw on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebecca-degraw-639bbb62/
Wilson Sonsini: https://www.wsgr.com/en/
Relevant Links:
Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati (WSGR) — **https://www.wsgr.com/**
Becki DeGraw — https://www.wsgr.com/en/people/becki-degraw.html
Waymo — Jason's headline example of a big-company spinout — https://waymo.com/
Expedia's 1999 Microsoft spinout — https://www.britannica.com/topic/Expedia-com-American-company
Nvidia's ~$20B deal for Groq's asset— https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/24/nvidia-buying-ai-chip-startup-groq-for-about-20-billion-biggest-deal.html
Timestamps:
0:00 What a spinout actually is
0:50 Becki: the real "why" behind spinouts
2:24 IP licenses and the "acquihire" workaround
3:09 University spinouts
4:41 Google/Waymo and Microsoft/Expedia: spinouts at scale
5:03 Jason's 80/20 rule and the unicorn test
6:06 The broken cap table problem
6:36 Licensing deals as an M&A workaround
8:44 Exclusive licenses, full assignments, and license-backs
11:07 "What if Google spun out YouTube"
12:31 Groq–Nvidia, capital gains vs. income
13:23 Confidentiality, customer lists, and fiduciary duty traps
15:16 Get the paper done BEFORE you start the new thing
15:56 "It's a divorce," — and the employees are the kids

Subscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.com
Check out the TWIST500: https://www.twist500.com
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VC experts on why Physical AI funding is heating up | E2333

3 september 2026 · 1 uur 20 min
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VC experts on why Physical AI funding is heating up | E2333 Lees meer

This Week In Startups is made possible by:

partner 1 - link

partner 2 - link

partner 3 - link

Today's show:

Are we one step closer to data centers in space? Katelin Holloway of Seven Seven Six and Paige Doherty of Behind Genius Ventures break it down what it would take.

Plus investor interest is surging in Physical AI companies. Paige explains why she backs applications of physical AI over general-purpose robotics, and how her thesis on multimodal AI led to the largest check she's ever written.

We then dive into the Pentagon's rollout of ChatGPT Mil and Grok for Government. And Katelin gives us her insight into how VCs are investing in Europe and the regulations behind the scenes.

Guests:

Katelin Holloway on X: https://x.com/katelin_cruse

Seven Seven Six: https://sevensevensix.com/

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

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

Full Transcript and Summary, powered by Plaud

https://plaud.ai/twist

Related Links:

Department of War adds ChatGPT Mil and Grok for Government: https://fortune.com/2026/09/01/pentagon-chatgpt-grok-government-military-ai-members-pete-hegseth-defense-department/

OpenAI for Government: https://openai.com/global-affairs/introducing-openai-for-government/

Starshield — SpaceX's government/defense arm: https://www.spacex.com/starshield/

UN work on LAWS (Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems): https://disarmament.unoda.org/the-convention-on-certain-conventional-weapons/background-on-laws-in-the-ccw/

European Commission designates ChatGPT a VLOSE: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/news/commission-designates-chatgpt-reddit-roblox-under-digital-services-act

Commission press release: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_26_1772

Euronews on why a chatbot that searches the live web counts as a search engine: https://www.euronews.com/next/2026/08/31/eu-places-chatgpt-reddit-and-roblox-under-st…
Are AI Agents forming "civilizations" or is this just a psy op? | 2332

31 augustus 2026 · 1 uur 7 min
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Northwest Registered Agent: https://northwestregisteredagent.com/twistdomain

CLA: https://www.claconnect.com/withyou

Rippling: https://rippling.ai/twist

Today's show:

Hugging Face's $399 Microduck and the art of companies taking on side quests. Then, we get into Dwarkesh Patel's "The Rise and Fall of Agent Civilizations," which blew up online this weekend. Jason calls the "secret AI civilization" framing deliberate PR, and thinks it's inflammatory enough that someone might attack a data center over it.

Then, Anders Forslund of Heart Aerospace shows off the X1, a battery-powered electric airliner designed for regional flights that can fly for 30 minutes on just $5 of juice. PLUS, we've got John Yu of Bitsec explaining how his subnet project outperformed Fable 5 in website vulnerability checks.

Guests:

Anders Forslund on X: https://x.com/AndersForslund1?s=2

Heart Aerospace: https://www.heartaerospace.com/

John Yu on X: https://x.com/yubrew

Bitsec: https://sentios.io/ & https://sentios.io/

Relevant Links:

MicroDuck: https://pollen-robotics.com/microduck/

Dwarkesh Patel, "The Rise and Fall of Agent Civilizations," https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/openai-huggingface

Dwarkesh's launch thread on X: https://x.com/dwarkesh_sp/status/2093833419377815719

METR's independent investigation of the OpenAI/Hugging Face incident: https://metr.org/blog/2026-08-26-openai-hugging-face-incident-investigation/

X1 first flight announcement — https://www.heartaerospace.com/newsroom/heart-aerospace-completes-first-flight-of-world-s-largest-electric-aircraft

JSX (JetSuiteX) — https://www.jsx.com/

Pilatus PC-12 —https://www.pilatus-aircraft.com/en/fly/pc-12

Surf Air — https://www.surfair.com/

Zcash → https://z.cash/

Timestamps:

0:00 Is Hugging Face's Microduck the greatest side quest ever?

5:31 Jason puts Clem Delangue and Jensen Huang in charge of AI PR

11:20 Northwest Registered Agent - Got a new business idea? Northwest Register…
Breaking down Nvidia's Hugging Face and Poolside bets | E2331

29 augustus 2026 · 1 uur 48 min
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This Week In Startups is made possible by: Lees meer

DigitalOcean: https://do.co/twist

Every.io: https://every.io

PayPal: https://paypal.com/business

Today's show:

*Nvidia agreed to buy Hugging Face for $12.9 billion, just days after quietly licensing Poolside's coding model for $6 billion+. On TWiST, Jason lays out why this is actually the biggest AI story of the year. Nvidia plans to offer enterprises unmetered, unlimited on-prem compute, pulling them away from reliance on Anthropic and OpenAI's frontier models and products.

PLUS we're chatting with Halter founder & CEO Craig Piggott about how his company helps farmers optimize their land use via solar-powered AI-driven cattle collars. AND Hop Aero CEO and co-founder Matija Milenovic shows us Rook, his autonomous hypersonic cargo rocket that can launch from a shipping container and deliver cargo up to 450 miles away in about 15 minutes. Finally, Jason and Lon explain why you never post Slop on the timeline.

Guests:

Craig Piggott on X: https://x.com/craig_piggott

Halter: https://www.halterhq.com/

Matija Milenovic on X: https://x.com/mat_milenovic

Hop Aero: https://hopaero.com/

Relevant Links:

OpenAI Open Letter: https://openai.com/collective-cyberdefense/

OpenAI Hugging Face report: https://openai.com/index/hugging-face-incident-and-the-road-ahead/

OpenAI Jalapeño report: https://openai.com/index/jalapeno-first-results/

Dario Amodei-Gavin Baker tweet thread: https://x.com/DarioAmodei/status/2088758816376807762

TechCrunch: Nvidia-Hugging Face deal: https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/26/nvidia-closes-in-on-hugging-face-acquisition/

TechCrunch coverage of Halter: https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/04/unpacking-peter-thiels-big-bet-on-solar-powered-cow-collars/

Dealroom: Sir Peter Back on Rocket Lab: https://app.dealroom.co/news/note/sir-peter-beck-on-rocket-lab-s-no-money-so-we-have-to-think-playbook-from-a-60k-new-zealand-start-up-to-an-end-to-end-space-company

WSJ: Druckenmiller op-ed: "Let the Bond Market Speak"…
Bill Gates foresees massive AI job loss: these VCs disagree | E2330

27 augustus 2026 · 1 uur 31 min
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Lightfield: https://lightfield.app

Northwest Registered Agent: https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twistdomain

Rippling: https://Rippling.ai/twist

Today's show:

*Bill Gates dropped a 6,000 word warning: AI will be "the greatest equalizer ever invented, or the worst sort of injustice." The Microsoft icon has an AI agenda for the US: new national institutions, AI use taxes, and jobs legally reserved for humans only.

Our VC roundtable guests — Sheel Mohnot (Better Tomorrow Ventures), Dave McClure (Practical Venture Capital), and Hussein Kanji — push back hard. Is taxing profits a better fix for AI taking jobs than taxing the tokens themselves?

PLUS: Meta's $17B kids safety settlement… does it go far enough? Why does Stripe want OpenRouter? A peek at the VC's actual portfolio mark-ups. AND begun, the AI agent wars have. Our panel chooses between OpenClaw, Instinct, and Grok Bot.

Guests

Sheel Mohnot on X: https://x.com/pitdesi

Better Tomorrow Ventures: https://www.btv.vc/

Dave McClure on X: https://x.com/davemcclure

Practical Venture Capital: https://practicalvc.com/

Hussein Kanji on X: https://x.com/hkanji

Hoxton Ventures: https://hoxtonventures.com/

Relevant Links

GatesNotes: "The turbulent AI era is here": https://www.gatesnotes.com/a-turbulent-ai-era-and-critical-choices-to-make

NPR: Meta settlement coverage: https://www.npr.org/2026/08/26/nx-s1-5944781/meta-settlement-child-safety-lawsuit

TechCrunch: Stripe agrees to buy OpenRouter: https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/16/stripe-will-reportedly-acquire-ai-gateway-startup-openrouter-for-7b/

Skild AI S1 Demo: https://www.skild.ai/blogs/s1

Instinct AI agent (waitlist): https://instinct.co/

TechCrunch: Instinct coverage: https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/24/instincts-powerful-ai-assistant-is-raising-privacy-and-security-concerns/

CNBC: OpenAI CFO says IPO is coming in 2027: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/19/open-ai-ipo-timing-2027-friar.html

Basis: https://www…
You Can't Fire a VC From Your Board: Here's Why | Wilson Sonsini Startup Legal Basics

26 augustus 2026 · 25 min
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Today's show:
Can a founder actually fire a board member? Short answer: almost never. And the reason why may surprise a lot of founders.
On this edition of Legal Basics, Wilson Sonsini partner Becki DeGraw joins Jason for a deep dive into who really controls your board, when investors start earning seats, and the differences between a board member and a board observer. Check out an episode that might just save your cab table someday.
PLUS they walk through the full lifecycle of your startup's board, exploring what it actually controls, when founders should start adding their own board members, the ownership threshold that means investors will start asking for seats, and how boards evolve from seed rounds to Series B>
Timestamps:
0:06 Welcome back to Legal Basics
1:47 When should a seed stage founder add their first board member?
7:47 From founder-controlled to "balanced"
10:31 Private vs. public company board pay
12:18 Do board members get expenses covered?
14:34 Why observers need a confidentiality provision
15:36 The "sign in the next 24 hours" pressure tactic
17:46 How to remove a director
24:01 When to use "Pled" vs. "Pleaded"
Check out all of the Startup Basics episodes here:
https://thisweekinstartups.com/basics Lees meer

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Check out the TWIST500: https://www.twist500.com
Subscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcp

Follow Becki:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebecca-degraw-639bbb62/

Follow Jason:
X: https://twitter.com/Jason
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis

Follow TWiST:
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Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartups
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartups
Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com
China wants you to cheer for the robots taking your job | E2329

25 augustus 2026 · 1 uur 20 min
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Odoo: https://odoo.com/twist

Quo: https://quo.com/TWiST

Conservation Fund: https://conservationfund.org/

how old a movie has to be for me to be able to show a part of it on youtube

Generally 10 seconds or less of a film clip can fall under fair use for commentary or criticism — which is how most podcasts and talk shows use clips without issue. But there's no hard legal rule based on age.

What actually matters more than age is fair use, which considers:

Purpose — commentary, criticism, education = stronger fair use case

Amount used — shorter = safer; a 5-10 second clip for reaction/discussion is generally fine

Effect on market — your clip shouldn't replace the original

In practice for YouTube specifically:

Most major studios have Content ID systems that will flag clips regardless of movie age — even 100-year-old films if the rights holder has registered them

Public domain is the real safe zone — films from 1927 or earlier are generally in the public domain in the US. Some films from the 1928-1963 range are also public domain if copyright wasn't renewed

Disney, Warner Bros., Universal etc. actively enforce even very old films

For a show like TWiST showing a short reaction clip — 5-10 seconds with clear commentary context is the industry standard and rarely gets actioned. But age alone won't protect you.

Today's show:

*A humanoid robot ran the 100m in 9.39, breaking the human Usain Bolt's world record, while an entire stadium cheered. Jason thinks Beijing's World Humanoid Robot Games aren't a science fair, or a fun exhibition, but the best AI PR campaign on Earth. While Americans debate the data centers that train the robot brains, China is already turning them into a spectacle and world-class entertainment.

Find out what Jason thinks America can do to catch up… and why he believes there will be 1 billion Optimus robots deployed by the year 2036.

PLUS on an all-news TWiST, hot takes on the potential $13B Hug…
Open source is going to win it all: Harvey proves it | E2328

21 augustus 2026 · 1 uur 9 min
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This Week In Startups is made possible by: Lees meer

Superhuman: https://superhuman.com

Sentry: https://sentry.io/twist

Lightfield: https://lightfield.app

Today's show:

Jason's been saying it for years now (and we've got an All In clip from 2023 to prove it). Open source will win the AI race. This week gives us a major evidence point, as $11B legal AI company Harvey released its own in-house model, trained on an open-weight Kimi K3 base. Harvey made a proprietary specialized solution without having to risk sharing its precious expert-compiled data with the major frontier labs.

PLUS we're checking out the FREE AI dictation app Willow with co-founder Allan Guo, and finding out how he plans to compete with giants like Wispr Flow and Apple. AND we've got the Stanford student who built an automated golf cart and gave luminaries like Jensen Huang and Sam Altman rides around campus.

Guests

Allan Guo on X: https://x.com/_allanguo

Willow: https://willowvoice.com/

Ethan Goodhart: https://x.com/EthanGoodhart

Sign up for the Wind TestFlight: https://testflight.apple.com/join/zZqmhhwf

Relevant Links

CNBC: OpenAI "will be a public company in 2027": https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/19/open-ai-ipo-timing-2027-friar.html

OpenAI Zero Data Retention Pledge: https://openai.com/index/our-commitment-to-zero-data-retention

TWIST (June 2026): Jason comments on OpenAI and training data: https://youtu.be/o3eow1nTrcI?si=orungk7OmplOuyio&t=742

All In podcast (Feb 2023): Jason comments on open source vs. frontier models: https://youtu.be/PVgBWV2bvLs?si=j6y7sHS0wx9q09oa&t=5173

Harvey: https://www.harvey.ai/

Harvey Tenet Research Preview: https://www.harvey.ai/blog/post-training-update-harvey-tenet

Fireworks AI: https://fireworks.ai/

Wispr Flow: https://wisprflow.ai/

Pipedrive: https://www.pipedrive.com/

Nvidia Jetson Thor: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/autonomous-machines/embedded-systems/jetson-thor/

OpenAI shares Wind golf cart clip: https://www.tiktok.com/@openai/video/76453367134721…
Taste is the new programming language (w/ Astrocade CEO Amir Sadeghian) | AI Basics

21 augustus 2026 · 21 min
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The TWiST AI Basics series is made possible by Google Cloud!
Build context-aware AI workflows using DeepMind models and orchestration tools with Google for Startups' new Startup technical guide on generative media. Get the guide here: https://goo.gle/technical_guide
Astrocade is building super-intelligence for the interactive world. Build the future of fun: https://www.astrocade.com/careers
Today's show:
*Making a video game once required a studio, an engine, and a team of five or more people working for six months. But with Astrocade, users just describe the game they'd like to play and share, and an AI assembles it from minutes, ready to publish to a TikTok-style feed.
Still, founder and CEO Amir Sadeghian tell us AI can't actually build a great game all on its own. The magic isn't just in the automation, but the user's creativity and good taste.
Amir demos how the app turns simple sentences and descriptions into full video games, explains why frontier models still regress to the mean rather than pushing boundaries, and unpacks how the game's human-in-the-loop workflow can turn even generic ideas into something original and fun.
Guest:
Amir Sadeghian on X: https://x.com/_amirabs
Astrocade: https://www.astrocade.com/
Relevant Links
Flappy Bird: https://flappybird.io/
Plants vs. Zombies: https://www.ea.com/ea-studios/popcap/plants-vs-zombies
MrBeast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MrBeast
Google's Nano Banana Pro: https://nanabananapro.com/
Timestamps:
0:00 Welcome to AI Basics, presented by Google Cloud
0:44 Amir Sadeghian, CEO of Astrocade joins
1:08 What is Astrocade and how does it work?
2:58 From describing to publishing: the TikTok for games
3:37 Amir's origin story: four continents, one vision
5:11 Why making games used to require years of training
6:46 The watermelon juice theory of product friction
7:35 Taste as the new programming language
14:18 Personalizing games with your own images
15:23 From consumer to prosumer: can you make a living?
16:22 Ast… Lees meer
Neurosymbolic AI outperforms chatbots and product search | E2327

20 augustus 2026 · 54 min
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This Week In Startups is made possible by: Lees meer

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

Agree: https://agree.com

YSecurity: https://ysecurity.io/TWIST

Today's show:

Frontier AI models can ace PhD-level exams, but it's still bad at tracking down the product you want in the style that suits you. Onton's Zach Hudson tell us that the problem is that models are a black box.

His solution? A neurosymbolic model, Ontology 1, that learns about your taste and preferred aesthetic over time, then produces product searches tailored specifically to you, rather than just using keywords and relevant tags. How do neurosymbolic models work, and how does Onton understand your prompts and favorite design trends? And why aren't the frontier labs working on neurosymbolic models of their own? Zach joins Jason and Lon to discuss.

PLUS, following a record-smashing SpaceX IPO, Ashi Dissanayake of Spacium makes the case that the real bottleneck in space isn't launching rockets off the ground any more. It's refueling in orbit.

Guests

Zach Hudson on X: ****https://x.com/nosduhz

Onton: https://onton.com/

Spacium: https://spaceium.com/

Spacium on X: https://x.com/SpaceiumInc

Relevant Links

Poolside's journey to AGI: https://poolside.ai/vision/purpose

Startup Archive: Sam Altman on the Paul Graham advice that saved OpenAI: https://www.startuparchive.org/p/sam-altman-on-the-paul-graham-advice-that-saved-open-ai-always-make-an-api

Kelly Wearstler: https://www.kellywearstler.com/

Ennis House: https://franklloydwright.org/site/ennis-house/

Los Feliz Living: Ennis House profile: https://www.losfelizliving.com/los-feliz-historic-homes/ennis-house-los-feliz-hcm-149

Indiewire: Ennis-inspired "The Studio" offices: https://www.indiewire.com/features/craft/the-studio-production-design-interview-seth-rogen-1235114365/

Monocle Magazine: https://monocle.com/

Spaceium on Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/spaceium-inc

Orbit Fab's RAFTI: https://www.orbitfab.com/rafti/

James Webb Sp…
Bittensor creator Const on Affine, dTAO, "mining reasoning," and more | E2326

17 augustus 2026 · 1 uur 25 min
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This Week In Startups is made possible by: Lees meer

Northwest Registered Agent: https://northwestregisteredagent.com/twist

DigitalOcean: https://do.co/twist

Odoo: https://odoo.com/twist

Today's show:

We've been going deep on Bittensor and how it works all year on TWiST, meeting with the creators of some of our favorite subnets, and exploring how the system decentralizes inference, compute, and storage. Now, on this very special episode, Jason and Lon welcome Bittensor co-founder Jason Steeves (aka "Const") to the show.

He gives us a quick tour of the project's first principles, before diving into how subnets incentivize miners to contribute, how dTAO turned the creation of subnets into its own competition, how Const says he employs "the internal machinery of capitalism" to rank subnects, and his latest project, Subnet 120 (aka Affine).

Find out what the OpenTensor Foundation actually does, go inside the Templar controversy, and learn why Const is trying to make himself increasingly irrelevant.

Guest

Jacob Steeves on X: https://x.com/const_reborn

Bittensor: https://www.bittensor.com/

Affine: https://affine.io/

Relevant Links

Original Bittensor whitepaper: https://bittensor.com/whitepaper

Bittensor governance and documentation: https://www.bittensor.com/docs

Beginner's Guide to Dynamic TAO: https://www.tao.media/the-complete-beginners-guide-to-dynamic-tao-dtao/

Prime Intellect: TOPLOC: https://www.primeintellect.ai/blog/toploc

Engy (SN53): https://engy.ai/

Lium (SN51): https://www.lium.io

Targon (SN4): https://targon.com/

Templar (SN3): https://www.tplr.ai/

Hippius (SN75): https://hippius.com/

MakerDAO: https://makerdao.com/

Stillcore Capital: https://stillcorecapital.com/

Timestamps: 0:00 The origin of Bittensor (and the name Const)

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://northwest…
What we'll learn from Anthropic's $2-$3T IPO | E2325

15 augustus 2026 · 1 uur 20 min
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This Week In Startups is made possible by:
PayPal Open https://paypal.launch.co
CLA https://claconnect.com/withyou
Odoo https://Odoo.com/twist Lees meer

Today's show:
*Anthropic is likely headed for the largest IPO in history. A reported 2-3 trillion October debut would blow past SpaceX's recent record. Jason breaks down why the. numbers matter less than what they'll reveal about the entire AI economy.
Then, chats with a pair of founders: one who's selling subscription water filtration systems that will keep microplastics out of your brain (and other body parts), and another who's building the AI software that powers automated solar panel installation.
Guests
Sami Khoreibi: https://x.com/samikhoreibi
Wisewell: https://www.wisewell.com/
Puneet Puri: https://x.com/puneetp
Gritt Robotics: https://www.gritt.ai/
Relevant Links
Fortune: Anthropic reportedly plans $2T IPO in October: https://fortune.com/2026/08/13/anthropic-ipo-2-trillion-october-largest-ever-spacex/
Ramp AI Index: August update: https://ramp.com/data/ai-index-august-2026
Decart: https://decart.ai/
Bloomberg: Anthropic in talks to buy Decart: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-13/anthropic-said-in-talks-to-buy-ai-startup-decart-for-6-billion
Nat Geo: Profile of water sommelier Martin Riese: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/water-sommelier-martin-riese
Mailman School of Public Health: Nanoplastics study: https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/news/bottled-water-can-contain-hundreds-thousands-nanoplastics
Bryan Johnson microplastics post: https://x.com/bryan_johnson/status/1937194358027190637?lang=en
Topo Chico: https://www.coca-cola.com/us/en/brands/topo-chico
San Pellegrino: https://www.sanpellegrino.com/
Acqua Panna: https://www.acquapanna.com/intl/
Evian: https://www.evian.com/
Mountain Valley Spring Water: https://mountainvalleyspring.com
Fiji Water: https://www.fijiwater.com/
TechCrunch: Gritt exits stealth: https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/21/gritt-exits-stealth-with-34-million-for-…
These robots could cut delivery costs by 80% | Next Unicorns

13 augustus 2026 · 1 uur 4 min
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These robots could cut delivery costs by 80% | Next Unicorns
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Today's show:
*Cytronic built a robotics-first fulfillment network, packing and shipping orders for cents instead of dollars, from small, city-adjacent micro-warehouses. Alex chats with CEO and co-founder Kevin Gibbon about how he can build a fulfillment warehouse for $1.2 million, and why it costs Amazon 50M-100M.
PLUS Eyebot delivers low-cost doctor-reviewed eyeglass prescriptions following 90-second vision tests, conducted in everyday kiosks. We asked CEO and co-founder Matthias Hofmann how he's trying to simplify vision care and caught up with his Walmart and Sam's Club pilot programs.
Guests
Kevin Gibbon on X: https://x.com/kevingibbon
Cytronic: https://cytronic.ai/
Matthias Hofmann on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mchofmann/
Eyebot: https://www.eyebot.co/
Relevant Links
Axios: Cytronic seed round: ****https://www.axios.com/pro/supply-chain-deals/2026/07/15/robotic-fulfillment-cytronic-13m
Airhouse acquired by Syncware: https://www.airhouse.io/
Amazon News: 10 Years of Robotics: https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/operations/10-years-of-amazon-robotics-how-robots-help-sort-packages-move-product-and-improve-safety
Serve Robotics: https://www.serverobotics.com/
Zipline: https://www.flyzipline.com
TechCrunch: Manna plots major US expansion: https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/08/autonomous-drone-delivery-startup-manna-plots-major-u-s-expansion/
TechCrunch: Eyebot Series A round: https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/26/eyebot-gets-20m-series-a-to-boost-to-expand-eye-care-access/
CNET Eyebot coverage: https://www.cnet.com/health/medical/i-took-a-vision-test-in-90-seconds-with-a-robot-and-saw-the-future-of-vision-care/
Walmart & Sam's Club announcement: https://www.eyebot.co/resources/walmart-and-sams-club-pilot-fast-affordable-eyeglas…
Zuck's AI manifesto is a data center PR masterclass | E2323

11 augustus 2026 · 1 uur 20 min
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Today's show:
*Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg published a 6,500 word essay about the future of AI, and Jason thinks it's his smartest PR move in years.
The thinkpiece, "The Future is for Everyone: The Path to a Positive AI Future," arrives alongside a new open-weight Meta model — Muse Glimmer — and the promise of an open-weight version of Muse Spark 1.2 to come. Zuckerberg's clearly pitching an "abundance" narrative, promising the American public untold benefits from AI technology — everything from a PhD-level tutor for every student to scientific breakthroughs, personal assistants, and beyond — all for the low low cost of not banning new data centers. Do our hosts think everyday voters will take this deal?
PLUS X retires its revenue sharing program, the CLARITY Act misses a key pre-recess vote, what can we do to stop widespread AI-powered community college cheating, and some of the podcasting positions for which LAUNCH is hiring.
Relevant Links
Meta: "The Future is for Everyone": https://about.fb.com/news/2026/08/the-future-is-for-everyone/
Meta: "Introducing Muse Glimmer": https://research.meta.ai/blog/introducing-muse-glimmer-open-agentic-model
MS Now: "Kevin O'Leary wants to atone for his data center sins": https://www.ms.now/news/kevin-oleary-wants-to-atone-for-his-data-center-sins
"The Social Reckoning" teaser: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM4LkaXwGuY
X: Original Content Rewards Program: https://help.x.com/en/using-x/original-content-rewards
TechCrunch: Nikita Bier steps down as X's head of product: https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/05/nikita-bier-steps-down-as-xs-head-of-product/
Congress.gov: H.R. 3633 - Digital Asset Market Clarity Act: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/3633/text
Politico: "Crypto faces a setback in the Senate": https://www.politico.com/news/2026/08/07/delays-imperil-senate-crypto-b…
How AI splits startups into winners and losers | E2322

8 augustus 2026 · 1 uur 18 min
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Today's show:
A hedge fund just blew up shorting SaaS stocks. In turns out, the software companies that went all in on AI are bouncing back. Figma's CEO — still riding high on strong revenue — forfeited roughly $46 million in stock awards to ease investor nerves. Twilio posted its strongest quarter in years. Airbnb's CEO credits AI as the single biggest factor in the company's incredible turnaround.
Jason and Lon break down what's separating the winners this earnings season from the companies that are falling behind.
PLUS we're chatting with Bluecore Energy CEO and founder Kofi Asante about his plan to power ports, and one day AI data centers, with small, floating nuclear reactors.
AND we're kicking off the TWiST Weight Loss Challenge! Co-host Lon and Jason's brother, Jamie, are both starting GLP-1s. We'll track their progress and follow along as they attempt to collect $15,000 EACH in prize money.
Guest
Kofi Asante on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kofiasante1/
Bluecore Energy: https://www.bluecore.energy/
Jamie Calacanis on X: https://x.com/CalacanisJamie
Relevant Links
Bloomberg: Figma CEO forfeits $46M: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-05/figma-ceo-forfeits-46-million-in-stock-after-share-decline
Twilio announces second quarter 2026 results: https://investors.twilio.com/news-releases/news-release-details/twilio-announces-second-quarter-2026-results
TechCrunch: Twilio co-founder Jeff Lawson buys The Onion: https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/26/area-man-twilio-co-founder-jeff-lawson-buys-the-onion
Chesky: Airbnb will spend a lot more on AI: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/07/chesky-airbnb-ai-earnings.html
"Unreasonable Hospitality" by Will Guidara on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Unreasonable-Hospitality-Remarkable-Giving-People/dp/0593418573
The Times: Meet the unreasonable hospitality master who inspired "…
Airtable's 80% off value crash: VCs explain why it's still a win | E2321

6 augustus 2026 · 1 uur 13 min
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Today's show:
*Airtable just sold for $2.25 billion, an 81% drop from its peak of $11.7 billion. On this week's TWiST VC Roundtable, Aditya Agarwal (South Park Commons), Niko Bonatsos (Verdict Capital), and Rick Heitzmann (FirstMark Capital) break down why the venture world sees this as a good outcome, not a financial disaster.
By declining the deal, would Airtable's team have just been delaying the inevitable? Is the fact that they reached $400M+ ARR on its own a reason to celebrate? Find out why our investor panel prefers unwinding a stuck situation rather than chasing a growth rate that's no longer sustainable.
PLUS Robinhood's booming prediction market business, the secondary market flap over Anduril shares, why so many VCs shy away from "vice" categories, and a glimpse at how insiders are talking about the Apple-OpenAI lawsuit.
Guests
Aditya Agarwal on X: https://x.com/adityaag
South Park Commons: https://www.southparkcommons.com/apply
Niko Bonatsos on X: https://x.com/bonatsos
Verdict Capital: https://verdictcap.com/
Rick Heitzmann on X: https://x.com/rick
FirstMark Capital: https://firstmark.com/
Relevant Links
Airtable: https://www.airtable.com/
Bending Spoons announces Airtable acquisition: https://investors.bendingspoons.com/newsroom/bending-spoons-agrees-to-acquire-airtable
Constellation Software: The Anti-Conglomerate: https://www.eaglepointcap.com/blog/constellation-software-the-anti-conglomerate
Introducing Robinhood Ventures Fund II: https://robinhood.com/us/en/newsroom/introducing-rvii/
Quartz: Robinhood posted record quarterly revenue: https://qz.com/robinhood-record-revenue-prediction-markets-earnings-073026
Riot Games: https://www.riotgames.com/en
AngelList's USVC Fund: https://usvc.com/
Baseten: https://www.baseten.co/
OpenEvidence: https://www.openevidence.com/
Hermes Agent: https://hermes-agent.org/
Granola: https:/…
How Bespoke faked AI until it actually worked (w/ Akemi Tsunagawa) | E2320

3 augustus 2026 · 1 uur 2 min
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Today's show:
*Before Bespoke's "travel concierge" chatbot could actually hold a conversation, founder/CEO Akemi Tsunagawa and her team quietly answered customers themselves. That "fake it till you make it" strategy paid off. Bespoke landed Narita Airport as a customer based on the strength of their "chatbot" answers, and now the team runs three companies, and is expanding into shipyard robots.
In the fourth and final edition of TWiST Tokyo for Summer '26, Jason and Akemi discuss her thesis: "solve the labor gap first, [then] build the tech to math." Plus insights into Japan's tourism boom, how founders should consider the country's accelerating population decline, the economics and politics of importing foreign labor, and why AI may already be taking over more jobs than you think.
Guest
Akemi Tsunagawa on X: https://x.com/AkemiTsunagawa
Bespoke: https://www.be-spoke.io/
Bebot: https://www.bebot.io
BeTrained: https://www.be-spoke.io/en/be-trained
Relevant Links
Disrupting Japan: "Silicon Valley Has Chatbots All Wrong": https://www.disruptingjapan.com/silicon-valley-has-chatbots-all-wrong-heres-how-they-really-make-money/
CNN on Japan's population decline: https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/07/asia/japan-biggest-population-decline-record-intl-hnk
Paul Graham: "Do Things That Don't Scale": https://www.paulgraham.com/ds.html
Wispr Flow: https://wisprflow.ai/
TripAdvisor: https://www.tripadvisor.com/
KPMG on Japan's Business Manage Visa Reforms: https://kpmg.com/xx/en/our-insights/gms-flash-alert/flash-alert-2025-195.html
Business Traveller on the "Akiya" renovation trend: https://www.businesstraveller.com/insights/features/japan-akiya-boom-buying-abandoned-homes/
THR on the 2004 satirical film "A Day Without a Mexican": https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/a-day-without-a-mexican-20-years-later-…
Why AI has no taste and how to fix it (w/ Thais Castello Branco) | E2319

1 augustus 2026 · 1 uur 15 min
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Today's show:
AI models can solve PhD-level math equations and code an app in minutes… So why does everything they design look like identical slop? Thais Castello Branco, founder of Taste Labs, raised $18.5M in seed funding to teach frontier models about aesthetics and outputting quality content. She talks to Jason and Lon about why even frontier models regress to the mean on subjective tasks, how paid "TasteMakers" can improve output quality, and whether AI accelerates or destroys the half-life of "what's cool."
PLUS Leopold Aschenbrenner's AI hedge fund liquidated its public stock portfolio, but it may be too soon to count this 25-year-old completely out. Google Earth adds AI generation and turns into a misinformation factory. LinkedIn and Substack join the AI slop crackdown. And why does every venture capitalist seem to have an opinion about the Ceuta border crisis?
Guest
Thais Castello Branco on X: https://x.com/thaiscbranco_
Taste Labs: https://tastelabs.com/
Amplify Partners: "Kill the Slop": https://www.amplifypartners.com/blog-posts/kill-the-slop-announcing-our-investment-in-taste
Relevant Links
Leopold Aschenbrenner's essay "Situational Awareness": https://situational-awareness.ai/
CNBC on SA fund collapse: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/31/leopold-aschenbrenner-situational-awareness-fund-fire-sale.html
Henk van Ess thread on Google Earth + Nano Banana: https://x.com/henkvaness/status/2082912544394498228
Substack CEO Chris Best: "Against Claudefishing": https://post.substack.com/p/against-claudefishing
NPR on the Ceuta crisis: https://www.npr.org/2026/07/31/g-s1-136507/morocco-spain-migration
Ethan Goodhart's self-driving golf cart post: https://x.com/EthanGoodhart/status/2082136189998682598?s=20
"Wind" app on TestFlight: https://testflight.apple.com/join/zZqmhhwf
TechCrunch: "Gritt exits stealth": https://techcrunch.com…
Banning Chinese robots isn't regulatory capture | E2318

30 juli 2026 · 1 uur 26 min
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Today's show:
The FCC's decision to ban Chinese humanoid robots over security concerns is a boon to American startups, which now face a narrower competitive market. But where should we draw the line on security over competition? Menlo Ventures' Deedy Das, Weisburd Pierce's David Weisburd, Plexo Capital's Lo Toney, and LAUNCH's Jason Calcanis broke down how they differentiate between legitimate security concerns and purported regulatory capture. Today's venture capital roundtable also dug into OpenRouter's possible sale to Stripe, changing tokenomics, the Indian market for startups, and even DoorDash's drone-delivery business taking flight.
Guest Links:
Deedy Das https://x.com/deedydas
Menloe Ventures https://menlovc.com/
Lo Toney https://x.com/lo_toney
Plexo Capital https://www.plexocap.com/
David Weisburd https://x.com/DWeisburd
Weisburd Pierce https://www.weisburdpierce.com/
Jason Calcanis https://x.com/Jason
LAUNCH https://launch.co/
Show Links:
The FCC's decision regarding Chinese robots https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-adds-foreign-produced-power-inverters-and-robots-covered-list-0
Pacing the Frontier letter https://www.pacingthefrontier.com/
Cursor Start https://cursor.com/blog/cursor-start-india
Stripe may buy OpenRouter https://www.axios.com/2026/07/24/stripe-openrouter-merger-ai-currency
OpenRouter financials https://www.theinformation.com/articles/openrouter-financials-suggest-steep-price-possible-acquirer-stripe?rc=g3wfdp
Kimi K3 license https://huggingface.co/moonshotai/Kimi-K3/blob/main/LICENSE
Pangram https://www.pangram.com/
Tau Robotics https://www.tau-robotics.com/
Zipline https://www.zipline.com/
Manna https://www.manna.aero/
Kindred Ventures https://kindredventures.com/
Autolane https://goautolane.com/
Salmon Labs https://salmonrun.ai/

Timestamps:
0:00 The FCC bans Chinese humanoid robots
2:18 …
While other cultivated meat companies are collapsing, this one turned a profit | E2317

27 juli 2026 · 44 min
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Today's show:
*Most lab-grown meat companies have already gone under. It's expensive to produce, and there's little demand from real-world consumers. But Tokyo's IntegriCulture is still standing after selling their proprietary serum to cosmetics companies.
On Episode 3 of TWiST from Tokyo, Jason sits down with Dr. Yuki Hanyu, an Oxford-trained chemist who started a DIY meat movement out of a comic convention and turned it into Japan's first cell-cultured protein company.
PLUS why the cultivated meat market stalled out, why producing a "slurry of cells" is more efficient than jumping right to muscle tissue, the regulatory framework in Japan vs. the US, and… is it fair to call this "meat"? Or is it something else entirely?
Guest
Yuki Hanyu on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yuki-hanyu-b860bb34/
IntegriCulture: https://integriculture.com/en/
Relevant Links:
AG Funder News: "IntegriCulture turns a profit": https://agfundernews.com/cell-ag-picks-shovels-pioneer-integriculture-turns-a-profit-but-cautions-that-as-long-as-cell-ag-remains-so-capital-intensive-it-will-be-difficult-to-take-off
Vegconominst: Cultivated duck liver coverage: https://vegconomist.com/cultivated-cell-cultured-biotechnology/cultivated-meat/japans-integriculture-products-cultivated-duck-liver/
Cellament skin care ingredient: https://www.cellament.jp/cellament-en?lang=en
Medium: Shojinmeat Project: https://medium.com/shojin-meat
Cellular Agriculture Institute of the Commons (CAIC): https://cellagri.org/en/about-us
Japan Association for Cellular Agriculture (JACA): https://jaca.jp/en/
Upside Foods: https://upsidefoods.com/
Vow: https://www.eatvow.com/
Impossible Foods: https://impossiblefoods.com/
Fast Company: "Inside the stunning collapse of Believer Meats": https://www.fastcompany.com/91462102/believer-meats-stunning-collapse-600-million-cooling-cultured-meat-industry
AG…
Why quantum has been "10 years away" for 30 years | E2316

24 juli 2026 · 45 min
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Today's show:
*For three decades now, we've been told that breakthroughs in quantum computing are right around the corner. So why hasn't anything materialized?
On TWiST in Tokyo, Jason sits down with Yaqumo CEO Kazuhiro Nakashoji and discusses what needed to change (like better algorithms and hardware), and why we may finally be nearing quantum's big moment.
Find out why quantum machines are so error-prone, explore the unusual international quantum supply chain, and get a heads-up about the cryptography reckoning coming for your Bitcoin.
Guest
Kazuhiro Nakashoji on X: https://x.com/KNakashoji
Yaqumo Inc.: https://yaqumo.com/en/
Relevant Links
JETRO (Japan External Trade Organization): https://www.jetro.go.jp/en/
Institute for Molecular Science: https://www.ims.ac.jp/en/
Quantum Insider: Yaqumo Quantum Photonics Agreement: https://thequantuminsider.com/2026/06/04/yaqumo-nkt-photonics-and-hamamatsu-photonics-sign-quantum-photonics-agreement/
Quantonation investment announcement: https://quantumcomputingreport.com/quantonation-selects-neutral-atom-hardware-developer-yaqumo-for-first-japanese-investment/
NIST: What is Post-Quantum Cryptography? https://www.nist.gov/cybersecurity-and-privacy/what-post-quantum-cryptography
Timestamps: 0:00 Intro / Founder University Tokyo
2:20 Guest intro: Kazu of Yakumo
3:20 What is a qubit?
8:34 Why quantum computers are so fragile
8:45 PayPal - Built for payments, growth, and agentic. Paypal Open, built for all business. Visit https://paypalopen.com to get started
13:36 Spinning IP out of the university lab
18:42 DigitalOcean - 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%.
28:01 Building the "Toyota of Quantum"
29:38 Rippling - Thanks to our partners at Rippling! Head to https://Rippling.ai/twist and get …
Why this longevity startup raised in Japan, not Silicon Valley | TWiST Tokyo | E2315

22 juli 2026 · 1 uur 12 min
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Today's show:
French ex-martial artist Bilal Kharouni is building his longevity startup from Okinawa, one of the world's "blue zones." (These are regions with the most people living long, healthy lives.) In this TWiST taping from Founder University in Tokyo, Jason investigates why a $200K raise in Japan can out-build a $2M raise in San Francisco, and why the best moat for biological AI isn't the model; it's the data no one else has.
Plus a tactical and practical discussion of product market fit, why Ekei killed a growing side business to maintain focus, Japan's fast-track for regenerative medicine, and hitting the upper limits for consumer longevity gadgets. Plus a live Q&A with Founder U attendees.
Guest
Bilal Kharouni on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bilal-kharouni/
Ekei Labs: https://www.ekeilabs.com/
Relevant Links
Okinawa Institute of Science and Tech (OIST): ****https://www.oist.jp/
Life Biosciences: https://www.lifebiosciences.com/
NewLimit: https://www.newlimit.com/
Centivax: https://www.centivax.com/
Medical Daily: "First Human Trial to Reverse Aging Gets FDA Clearance": https://www.medicaldaily.com/first-human-trial-reverse-aging-just-got-fda-clearance-what-epigenetic-reprogramming-actually-476076
Tim Friede snake venom article from Science: https://www.science.org/content/article/he-injected-himself-venom-decades-can-his-antibodies-help-snakebite-victims
Micro1: https://www.micro1.ai/
Whoop: https://www.whoop.com/
Station F Paris startup campus: https://stationf.co/
Japan Times: "PM Takaichi sleeps only 2-4 hours a night": https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/11/14/japan/politics/takaichi-sleep-overwork/
FDLI: "Japan's Regenerative Medicine Regulatory Pathways": https://www.fdli.org/2019/02/global-focus-japans-regenerative-medicine-regulatory-pathways-encouraging-innovation-and-…
The AI Securing Your Workforce Before a Mistake Ever Becomes a Breach | E2314

20 juli 2026 · 42 min
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Today's show:
*Cybersecurity has long focused on cleaning up a system AFTER a breach but Ent founder Brandon Dixon says that's backwards. He just raised a $100M seed round to put an AI agent on everyone's company laptops that catches the risky clicks, leaked files, or rogue agents BEFORE they wreck havoc.
PLUS Clawra creator David Im return swith his new project, Sume's Avatar, a multi-model orchestration layer that generates 60-second UGC videos from a single prompt… and gets it right on the first try, rather than falling back on trial and error.
Guests:
Brandon Dixon on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandonsdixon/
Ent: ****https://ent.ai/
David Im on X: https://x.com/davidim
Sume: https://www.sume.com/
Relevant Links:
WSJ: "Cyber Security Startup Ent Raises $100 Million in Seed Funding": https://www.wsj.com/pro/cybersecurity/cyber-startup-ent-raises-100-million-in-seed-funding-a3e9b6c6
Microsoft Security Copilot: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/business/ai-machine-learning/microsoft-security-copilot
Engadget: "Meta 'pausing' employee tracking program…": https://www.engadget.com/2199458/meta-is-pausing-employee-tracking-program-after-it-let-the-whole-company-see-sensitive-data/
Seedance 2.0: https://seedance2.ai/
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro: Why AI + cybersecurity is the hot combo right now
2:29 How INT stops breaches before they happen
4:56 AI is giving non-technical employees dangerous new powers
10:26 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 report fast. Get $1,000 off for a limited time at https://www.vanta.com/twist
13:54 Why on-device AI beats cloud-based security
20:08 Superhuman - Get AI that works where you work. Unlock your Superhuman potential at https://superhuman.com
25:18 INT's business model…
The dawn of surgery bots + buy a home for $250 (w/ Andromeda & Mogul) | E2313

17 juli 2026 · 47 min
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The dawn of surgery bots + buy a home for $250 (w/ Andromeda & Mogul) | E2313
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Today's show:
*Andromeda Surgical is building the autonomy layer that could one day allow robots to perform surgery. Rather than building their own intricate, complex hardware, Andromeda uses off-the-shelf arms from a German manufacturer, and focuses on the software that will allow doctors to operate it from an iPad.
Plus Mogul co-founder and CEO Alex Blackwood shows Jason how his platform lets anyone buy fractional shares of rental homes for as little as $250, earning monthly dividends, appreciation, and tax benefits without the headache of being someone's landlord.
It's a founder double feature on a brand new TWiST.
Guests:
Nick Damiano on X: https://x.com/nickdamian0
Andromeda Surgical: https://www.andromedasurgical.com/
Alex Blackwood on X: https://x.com/blackwoodtweets
Mogul: https://www.mogul.club/
Relevant Links:
KUKA: https://www.kuka.com/
Intuitive Surgical (and Da Vinci 5): https://www.intuitive.com/en-us
Neuralink: https://neuralink.com/
Padsplit: https://www.padsplit.com/
AngelList: https://www.angellist.com/
The Syndicate: https://thesyndicate.com/
Timestamps:
0:00 The iPad controlled surgery bot
5:46 Building "Google Maps for the body"
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://northwestregisteredagent.com/twist
14:28 What is a "sous surgeon"
20:46 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
24:30 The Neuralink connection
29:40 Understanding Mogul's business model
31:01 MongoDB - AI-assist…

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