This Week in AI

This week we sit down with three founders building at the frontier of AI in space, autonomous hardware, and software reliability: Philip Johnston (StarCloud), Boris Sofman (Bedrock Robotics), and Spiros Xanthos (Resolve AI). We dig into why data centers are heading to orbit, how AI is taking the wheel on construction sites, and whether the industry is moving too fast for its own good.

We explore how physical infrastructure, real-world autonomy, and AI trust are reshaping the industry from the ground up.

• Sam Altman vs. Space Data Centers: He said it won't matter "this decade." But Philip breaks down why the economics of space compute are about to flip.
• The Construction Labor Crisis: Half the skilled workforce is retiring in the next seven years while data center construction spend hits $700B this year alone. Boris explains why autonomous excavators aren't replacing workers, they're the only way to keep up.
• AI Broke Amazon's Code: Generative AI is shipping software faster than engineers can understand it. Spiros warns that accelerating code velocity without upgrading reliability is a disaster waiting to happen.
• Automation Bias & Skill Degradation: What aviation taught us about over-trusting autopilot, and what developers need to learn fast.
• Why Americans Don't Trust AI: A KPMG survey puts AI's favorability between ICE and Iran. The panel debates whether healthcare, education, and construction are the three wins that could turn the tide.
• Karpathy's AI Research Agent: A weekend project that fires off entire teams of AI grad students running experiments overnight. Is this what automating the scientific method actually looks like?
• Anthropic vs. the Pentagon: The U.S. government threatened to label a leading domestic AI company a supply chain risk. Who gets to decide how AI is used in warfare?

Timestamps:

00:00 — Welcome to This Week in AI: Episode 4

01:22 — Philip Johnston (Star Cloud): Why data centers in space will dominate

03:35 — Boris Sofman (Bedrock Robotics): Autonomizing construction equipment with AI

08:44 — Spiros Santos (Resolve AI): Intro & AI-generated code's "high blast radius" problem at Amazon

09:31 — Squarespace: Turn your idea into a beautiful website! Go to http://www.squarespace.com/twist for a free trial. When you’re ready to launch, use offer code TWIST to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

10:35 — Deep dive: Amazon's code red meetings & trusting AI-generated code too much

13:20 — Automation bias & skill degradation: the aviation autopilot analogy

17:09 — Why Americans distrust AI: and what the industry should do about it

20:05 — Notion ad

21:29 — KPMG survey results: only 9% of large companies plan job cuts from AI, 55% plan to hire more; panel debates job displacement fears

31:43 — AI's PR fix: healthcare, education & construction as the big three wins

39:22 — World models & humanoid robots: LeCun's $1B bet & the Figure video controversy

47:59 — Star Cloud's 88,000-satellite constellation: economics of space compute

56:05 — Andrej Karpathy's AI research agent: automating the scientific method

1:01:04 — Anthropic vs. the military: supply chain risk, Dario's dilemma & the Iran strike claim

1:07:50 — Hiring pitches & outro: Star Cloud, Bedrock Robotics, Resolve AI

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This week we sit down with three founders building at the frontier of AI infrastructure, evaluation, and hardware: Chase Lochmiller (Crusoe), Naveen Rao (Unconventional AI), and Anastasios Angelopoulos (Arena). We dig into the real bottlenecks slowing down the AI buildout, how to standout in the job market as AI matures, and the explosive government standoff between Anthropic and the Pentagon.

We explore how AI infrastructure, open source models, and policy are reshaping the industry from the ground up.

• The Anthropic-Pentagon Standoff: The U.S. government blacklisted a leading domestic AI company for the first time. Who sets the rules for AI in warfare?
• Jevons Paradox & AI: Every efficiency gain in intelligence-per-watt creates more demand, not less. AI infra is positioned to capture the largest market humanity has ever built.
• OpenClaw & Open Source Mania: The open-source AI agent that just became GitHub's most-starred project. It now runs locally on your phone.
• Should You Learn to Code?: Yes, but not as a trade skill. Bootcamp-style training is dead. Understanding how machines work is what separates leaders from everyone else.
• Rethinking the Computer from Scratch: Naveen's team is building chips that mimic biology, targeting 1,000x efficiency gains.
• The Coming Labor Crisis: Anastasios argues most valuable work is just training humans for repeatable tasks, and that work is disappearing. Chase counters that digital labor is a new variable in the GDP equation.

This Week In Startups is made possible by:

Notion - https://www.notion.com/twist

Quadratic - https://www.Quadratic.ai/twist

Timestamps:

00:38 — Welcome to This Week in AI

01:21 — Show intro and guest introductions (Chase from Crusoe and Anastasius from Arena)

02:22 — Crusoe's Stargate partnership: 1.2GW campus for Oracle and OpenAI in Abilene, Texas

03:09 — Rethinking computing from first principles for 1,000x efficiency

06:53 — How Arena went from a Berkeley side project to half a billion conversations

09:28 — Quadratic - Bringing the productivity boost of AI into your spreadsheets. Visit https://www.quadratic.ai/twist to sign up and use the code TWIST to get one free month of their pro tier subscription.

12:01 — Open source AI explosion: On-device models, token costs, and adoption

15:31 — Defining AGI: Clay Math millennium problems, moving goalposts, and what AI still can't do

22:08 — Notion - Notion brings all your notes, docs, and projects into one connected space that just works with AI built right in. Try Notion, with Notion Agent, at https://www.notion.com/twist

23:07 — System 1 vs. System 2 thinking and where compute actually happens

26:31 — Crusoe Spark: Modular data centers that go where the power is

34:33 — Model compression is moving faster than anyone predicted

36:51 — Jevons Paradox, the employment question, and the coming labor crisis

45:53 — Abundance, advice for young people, and the importance of learning to code

64:41 — AI in warfare: Corporate responsibility, inevitability, and national obligations

Subscribe to This Week in AI on Apple: https://thisweekinai.ai/spotify

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Jason Calacanis sits down with two founders building at the frontier of AI products and infrastructure: Tanay Kothari (Wispr Flow) and Richard Socher (You.com & AIX Ventures). They dig into the Citrini "doom post" that rattled markets, the real economics of automation waves, and how AI-first teams are being rebuilt from the ground up.

We explore how the agentic shift is reshaping companies, costs, and careers:

• The AI Doom Post Debunked: Why the viral Citrini Substack predicting 10% unemployment and an S&P crash is completely wrong.
• AI-First Hiring: How Wispr Flow shipped their #1 Android voice app with one engineer running ten Claude agents simultaneously — and stopped hiring junior developers entirely.
• Customer Support at Scale: How Wispr went from needing 200 support agents to 4 by automating 15 distinct support loops, from bug tickets to product feedback.
• The Cognitive Surplus: Why automation doesn't destroy jobs, it creates the next wave of businesses nobody has predicted yet.
• Open Source vs. Closed Models: Why DeepSeek forced every major lab to innovate faster, and how Wispr built its own 90% gross margin voice model by starting on open source.
• Taiwan & the Chip Risk: Apple's Mac Mini onshoring, the 2027 CCP military warning, and the five contingency plans the world is quietly building around TSMC.
• OpenClaw Mania: Producer Oliver joins the show to talk about how he is using OpenClaw to do his tasks for him.

This Week In Startups is made possible by:

Notion - https://www.notion.com/twist

Quadratic - https://www.Quadratic.ai/twist

Timestamps:

00:01:16 - Welcome & Guest Introductions: Tanay Kothari (Wispr Flow) and Richard Socher (You.com)

00:03:33 - Why Voice Dictation Finally Works: How Wispr turns rambling speech into send-ready messages

00:05:43 - Foot Pedals, Rings & the Future of Voice Input Modalities

00:09:32 - The Citrini "Doom Post": The viral Substack predicting 10% unemployment and an S&P crash

00:11:52 - Quadratic - Bringing the productivity boost of AI into your spreadsheets. Visit https://www.quadratic.ai/twist to sign up and use the code TWIST to get one free month of their pro tier subscription.

00:14:28 - Debunking the Doom: Cognitive Surplus, the Lump of Labor Fallacy & Why People Adapt

00:22:08 Notion ****- Notion brings all your notes, docs, and projects into one connected space that just works with AI built right in. Try Notion, with Notion Agent, at https://www.notion.com/twist

00:26:18 - Open Source vs. Closed Models: How DeepSeek Forced Innovation & Who Wins the Cost Race

00:38:05 - Building AI-First Teams: Certifications, Agent Management & the New Skill Stack

00:43:42 - Customer Support Reinvented: How Wispr Went from 200 Agents to 4

01:16:29 - Breaking News: Apple Onshores Mac Mini to Houston & The Taiwan Chip Risk Explained

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Jason Calacanis sits down with three CEOs building at the bleeding edge of the agentic revolution: Mitesh Agrawal (Positron AI), Alex Elias (Qloo), and Kash Ali (TaxGPT). They discuss the rapid rise of Open Claw, an open-source platform that is fundamentally changing work by allowing users to create autonomous agents. "Saving 30 minutes a day... that’s like getting three more weeks a year back." "I don't need a technical recruiter today." We explore how autonomous agents are moving beyond "Copilots" to become independent teammates:

• The AI Executive Assistant: How Mitesh Agrawal uses agents to automate inbox filtering and Slack drafts, recapturing 6% of his year.
• The Hiring Hiatus: Kash Ali screened 1,000 job applications in two hours with "flawless" accuracy, replacing 40+ hours of manual labor.
• The $1M One-Person Firm: How AI is solving the shortage of 340,000 accountants by allowing a single person to command an "army of agents".
• Democratizing Luxury: Scaling the "chauffeur and concierge" experience to everyone through taste-based AI and structured inference.
• Autonomous Media: A demo of an agent that transcribes, clips, and captions viral content in five minutes, a process that previously took an hour.The agent era is here. Are you building your replicant, or are you being left behind by a 10x more efficient workforceThis Week In Startups is made possible by:Notion - https://www.notion.com/twistQuadratic - https://www.Quadratic.ai/twistTimestamps: 00:00 Welcome to This Week in AI!03:17 How are CEO’s using OpenClaw?09:25 Notion - Notion brings all your notes, docs, and projects into one connected space that just works with AI built right in. Try Notion, with Notion Agent, at notion.com/twist00:19:09 — Automating the "Great Hiring Hiatus”00:19:20 Quadratic - Bringing the productivity boost of AI into your spreadsheets. Visit [quadratic.ai/twist](https://www.quadratic.ai/twist) to sign up and use the code TWIST to get one free month of their pro tier subscription.00:27:11 — Saving Independent Film with AI Extras00:33:04 — Solving the Global Accounting Crisis00:36:36 — The $1 Million One-Person Tax Advisory00:43:05 — Demo: The Autonomous Content Clipper0:00 Making Clips with OpenClaw01:07:39 — Micro-Agents vs. "Ultron”01:10:23 — The Developer, the CEO, and the AI Joke (Outro)Subscribe to This Week in AI on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...Thanks for watching!🤖 If you want to stay ahead of the curve on all things AI, make sure to join our community across all platforms:📩 Get the Weekly Newsletter: https://thisweekinai.ai/📺 Subscribe on YouTube: [   / @thisweekinaipodcast  ](   / @thisweekinaipodcast  )📸 Instagram: [www.instagram.com/thisweekinaipodcast](  / thisweekinaipodcast  )📱 TikTok: [www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinaipodcast](  / thisweekinaipodcast  )✖️X:https://x.com/ThisWeeknAIFollow Jason:X:   / jason  LinkedIn: [  / jasoncalacanis  ](  / jasoncalacanis  )*Thank you to our partners:09:25 Notion - Notion brings all your notes, docs, and projects into one connected space that just works with AI built right in. Try Notion, with Notion Agent, at notion.com/twist00:19:20 Quadratic - Bringing the productivity boost of AI into your spreadsheets. Visit [quadratic.ai/twist](https://www.quadratic.ai/twist) to sign up and use the code TWIST to get one free month of their pro tier subscription.Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/

Welcome to the very first episode of This Week in AI! Host Oliver Korzen kicks things off with an exclusive interview featuring Aaron Walls (CEO) and Andrius Useckas (CTO), the founders of ZioSec. Together, they dive deep into the world of OpenClaw security—exposing the vulnerabilities they've discovered in the wild, breaking down real attack vectors, and revealing the essential steps you need to take to protect your agent from exploitation.🔒 Key Takeaways:1. Why Mac Mini might be your safest local setup2. The "Lethal Trifecta" that makes AI agents vulnerable3. How indirect prompt injections hijack your agent through email & documents4. Why 26% of OpenClaw skills contain vulnerabilities5. Input sanitation & judge models as defensive layersZioSec: AI agent assisting in penetration testing | https://ziosec.comTimestamps:00:00 - Why Mac Mini isn't the right setup for everyone12:30 - The right way to host OpenClaw (hint: not AWS)16:11 - Understanding your attack surface27:33 - Why third-party skills are a security risk36:30 - Start with sandboxes & read-only permissions40:03 - Career advice for college students

Google released Gemini 3.0 this week, and I’ve been hands-on with it every day since launch. After diving into all the new capabilities, performance upgrades, and quality-of-life improvements, I’ve distilled the most important updates you should know. In this breakdown, I walk through the biggest feature changes, what they mean in real-world use, and how Gemini 3.0 stacks up against the other frontier models.