This Week in Startups

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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 spoiling food (CNN) → https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/12/europe/france-supermarket-cyberattack-fridges-intl

Hugging Face postmortem on the OpenAI agent that broke out of its sandbox → https://huggingface.co/blog/agent-intrusion-technical-timeline

NVIDIA OpenShell, an open-source sandbox for AI agents → https://docs.nvidia.com/openshell/latest/about/overview.html

Timestamps:

00:00:00 Why companies are switching from renting AI to owning it

00:09:10 How Reflection sells the whole AI stack

00:10:24 Paper is the legal backbone for thousands of startup founders and fund managers - including Launch. Use getpaper.ai/twist to get your cap table free for a year - or two years if you're leaving Carta.

00:11:28 Who is moving AI onto their own servers

00:14:37 What it took to train Beam

00:20:26 Superhuman Go is an AI chat that's always there when you need it, already aware of what you're doing, and doesn't ask you to start from zero. Sign up to get the best in AI at https://superhuman.com/

00:21:29 How reinforcement learning tasks get built

00:26:41 Hackers heat French supermarket fridges

00:29:07 The AI that broke out of its sandbox to cheat

00:31:05 The all-in-one business platform. Your first app is free! Get started today at https://Odoo.com/twist

00:33:10 Why open source makes software safer

00:38:13 The encryption fight and Tim Cook's stand

00:42:53 Why China raced ahead in open models

00:47:35 How Beam stacks up against Chinese models

00:50:21 When American open models catch up

00:58:39 Staying independent

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

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Today’s show:

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 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puP_D3k7vVI

Amazon officially closes its Ring acquisition in 2018 (TechCrunch) → https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/12/amazon-officially-owns-ring-so-lets-talk-product-integration/

Ring calls off its Flock Safety partnership after the Super Bowl ad backlash (Engadget) → https://engadget.com/home/ring-calls-off-partnership-with-police-surveillance-provider-flock-safety-031717605.html

Flock Safety plans to cut about 18% of its staff (Reuters via The Star) → https://www.thestar.com.my/tech/tech-news/2026/10/09/exclusive-ai-surveillance-startup-flock-safety-to-cut-several-hundred-jobs-amid-backlash-sources-say

Timestamps:

00:00:00 Totem, an offline compass for finding friends at festivals

00:00:31 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!

00:04:27 Why phones fail in big crowds

00:06:42 How more devices make the mesh network stronger

00:09:07 Why Totem beats phone GPS in a crowd

00:11:40 Got a new business idea? Northwest Registered Agent helps you bring it to life. Get a free domain, email, phone number, and more - with no purchase required! - Learn more at https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twistdomain

00:13:34 Why Apple won't build this into the iPhone

00:18:10 Raising money for hardware in an AI world

00:22:10 NetSuite: For the first time ever, you can try NetSuite Next for free. If your revenues are at least in the seven figures, go to https://netsuite.ai/twist

00:23:08 Turning crowd movement into a predictive model

00:28:04 Rentals, kids and accessibility use cases

00:32:22 The Conservation Fund: Find out more about how The Conservation Fund is protecting land, wildlife, and our shared access to the great outdoors while also providing economic opportunities. Visit https://conservationfund.org.

00:35:47 Mesh networks on the front lines in Ukraine

00:38:01 Flashback to Jason and Ring's Jamie Siminoff at CES 2017

00:41:44 Roasting Jamie's earlier startups

00:48:26 How a doorbell in the garage became Ring

00:53:34 Why you should always bet on your friends

01:02:21 Why a strong mission is cheating

01:07:45 Selling to Amazon versus going public

01:12:09 License plate readers and the Flock backlash

Subscribe to our newsletters on Substack:

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X: https://x.com/lons

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This Week In Startups is made possible by:

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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 make Japan a global startup hub (The Japan Times) → https://www.japantimes.co.jp/2025/12/25/special-supplements/accelerating-business-ambitions-global-scale-techstars-tokyo/

VidiLabs, maker of the Seekr indoor positioning platform → https://seekrai.global/

Density, the people-counting sensor company Jason has backed for a decade → https://www.density.io

Arabat, recovering critical minerals from batteries with citrus and farm waste → https://arabat.it/

AssetHub raises a $2M seed for its AI 3D platform (The Bridge) → https://thebridge.jp/en/2025/08/aix3d-production-platform-assethub-raises-approximately-¥300-million-in-seed-funding

Seedance 2.0, the ByteDance AI video model Jason says fans are using to make Marvel shorts → https://seed.bytedance.com/en/blog/seedance-2-0-official-launch

Bending Spoons, the company Jason cites for buying apps and running them with tiny AI-powered teams (TechCrunch) → https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/31/what-is-bending-spoons-everything-to-know-about-aols-acquirer/

Burning Chrome by William Gibson, the source of “the street finds its own uses for things” → https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ICMWZH4/

Timestamps:

00:00:00 Jason's first trip to Japan and the food crawl

00:03:07 Why everyone in Japan acts like a founder

00:03:42 Founder University comes to Japan

00:08:44 Techstars Tokyo and Japan's push for global founders

00:10:28 Why Japanese startups stay on the island

00:12:44 Parents, lifetime jobs, and the fear of failure

00:15:13 How Japan mastered product market fit

00:18:43 Lightfield: Name one person who's ever enjoyed updating a CRM. Exactly. Lightfield's AI agent does it for you - it even prospects and books your meetings. Used by thousands of startups. Free at https://lightfield.app

00:20:10 The white lab coat and the man who named his daughter Cinnamon

00:25:05 Seekr: centimeter-precise indoor navigation

00:27:38 Why investors want the business case, not the press

00:28:21 Rippling: 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.

00:34:54 Arabat: recovering rare earths with orange peels

00:38:26 Getting from free pilots to paid pilots

00:38:38 Upwork: Upwork helps businesses find highly skilled freelance professionals for specialized work. Post your job for free at https://upwork.com

00:43:57 AssetHub: AI 3D models for anime and game IP

00:52:40 Come for the tool, stay for the marketplace

00:54:35 CRAZIA: turning customer conversations into growth

00:56:42 JuJuJuu: giving alternative protein the structure of steak

00:59:02 JAPANMEDIA: AI manga and anime at a fifth of the cost

01:01:24 Tsuin AI: AI twins that think and act like you

01:03:15 Picking the layup and the wild card

01:09:29 Rumi Light: faster data paths inside AI servers

01:11:40 GENCHI: a local avatar that shops Japan for you

01:13:51 TattvaSilicon: analog circuit design in a day

01:15:36 Mimi AI: learning to actually speak Japanese

01:17:51 Why a live shopping avatar is Jason's wild card

Subscribe to our newsletters on Substack:

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Follow Jason:

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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 training data company Chris and LAUNCH backs → https://www.micro1.ai

Vercel’s data on companies shifting to open-weight models → https://vercel.com/i/open-weight-models

Instinct raises $1B at a $10B valuation (SiliconANGLE) → https://siliconangle.com/2026/09/28/everyday-personal-ai-assistant-startup-instinct-raises-1b-at-10b-valuation/

Meta introduces Muse, its personal AI agent → https://about.fb.com/news/2026/09/introducing-muse-personal-ai-agent/

Wajo, maker of the Fo agent Kanu uses → https://wajo.ai

Factory’s CEO accuses his board adviser of spying for Cognition (TechCrunch) → https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/30/factory-ceo-just-accused-his-vc-board-advisor-of-spying-for-cognition/

xAI rents its Colossus 1 data center to Anthropic (Data Center Dynamics) → https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/musk-spacex-xai-is-actively-seeking-more-ai-compute-customers-following-anthropic-deal/

Bending Spoons agrees to buy Miro, weeks after Airtable → https://investors.bendingspoons.com/newsroom/bending-spoons-agrees-to-acquire-miro

The FCC’s new rule on foreign-made robots → https://www.fcc.gov/covered-list-faqs-robots-inverters

Timestamps:

00:00:00 VC roundtable with guest host Deedy Das

00:01:23 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!

00:02:11 OpenAI's math results and what's left to invest in

00:05:10 Formalizing taxes and code so AI can prove its work

00:06:37 Why science breakthroughs still need the real world

00:09:44 Odoo: The all-in-one business platform. Your first app is free! Get started today at https://Odoo.com/twist

00:10:54 Can startups compete with the labs on compute?

00:13:02 Private data and vertical AI as the moat

00:18:54 Would you invest in AI training data companies?

00:20:34 Got a new business idea? Northwest Registered Agent helps you bring it to life. Get a free domain, email, phone number, and more - with no purchase required! - Learn more at www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twistdomain

00:26:29 What a great founder looks like in the AI era

00:29:13 Quo (formerly OpenPhone) gives you a clean, modern way to handle every customer call, text, and thread all in one place. Try it free at https://quo.com/TWiST

00:34:35 Is Instinct worth $10 billion?

00:41:31 Can Muse reach a billion daily users?

00:44:49 Favorite personal agent use cases

00:49:06 What happens when everyone's agent makes the same call

00:53:17 Factory vs. Cognition and VCs backing rivals

01:03:49 Is SaaS still worth venture money?

01:09:49 Where the panel gets its information

01:14:45 What a seed fund means in 2026

Subscribe to our newsletters on Substack:

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TWiAI: https://www.thisweekinai.ai/

TWiVC: https://thisweekinvc.substack.com/

Subscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcp

Follow Lon:

X: https://x.com/lons

Follow Jason:

X: https://twitter.com/Jason

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

Thank you to our partners:

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

This Week In Startups is made possible by:

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

DigitalOcean: https://do.co/twist

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-high-dosage-ai-tutoring-for-students-302880500.html

"The 2 Sigma Problem" by Benjamin Bloom (1984), original paper → https://web.mit.edu/5.95/readings/bloom-two-sigma.pdf

Journal record (Educational Researcher / SAGE) → https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.3102/0013189X013006004

NYC's AI moratorium through 8th grade (ABC News) → https://abcnews.com/Technology/new-york-city-public-schools-banning-ai-middle/story?id=136134872

Alpha School → https://www.alpha.school

Brilliant's origin story at the LAUNCH Festival (NPR) → https://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/07/23/203677692/giving-brightest-kids-the-cram-school-experience-online

Timestamps:

00:00:00 Live Ask Jason kicks off

00:00:14 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!

00:00:56 Fordham-bound caller asks how to break into finance in the AI era

00:05:59 Jason's gift: read one biography a month

00:10:06 Vanta: Get $1000 off your SOC 2 at https://www.vanta.com/twist

00:12:06 Returning caller David: what would you do with $500K?

00:19:53 DigitalOcean: Want to see what building on a true AI-native platform looks like? Head to https://do.co/twist to start building on DigitalOcean's AI-Native Cloud today - and cut your AI workload costs by up to 50%.

00:24:40 Bringing an AI protein folding tool into drug discovery

00:27:19 How to do customer discovery with big companies

00:29:44 The "dark arts" of market research and corporate intelligence

00:30:13 Sentry: Your team should be focused on shipping features - not chasing down bugs. New users can get $240 in free credits when they go to https://sentry.io/twist and use the code TWIST26

00:33:43 Is AI fear a dark PR campaign?

00:35:01 Anthropic meets with religious scholars

00:40:45 Are AI labs living through an Oppenheimer moment?

00:42:50 Why we need to talk about AI's upside in education

00:44:31 Sean Ready, co-founder and CEO of Aristotle, joins

00:45:42 Why AI models are getting worse at teaching

00:47:53 Aristotle demo: a voice AI tutor for AP Calculus

00:51:13 Predicting the next best teaching action

00:54:16 Bloom's two sigma problem and one-on-one tutoring

00:55:22 Aristotle's business model and pricing

00:57:53 Building a tutoring harness vs. relying on frontier labs

01:01:05 Why dyslexic students love Aristotle

01:02:40 Hand-grading thousands of hours of tutoring sessions

01:05:06 Socialization, classrooms and the future of public education

01:09:16 Where to try Aristotle and open roles

Subscribe to our newsletters on Substack:

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TWiVC: https://thisweekinvc.substack.com/

Subscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcp

Follow Lon:

X: https://x.com/lons

Follow Jason:

X: https://twitter.com/Jason

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

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

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

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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/

Pixar / Toy Story — the CGI "Toy Story moment" Jason expects for AI video → https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_Story

Practi — Mathew's platform for helping law firms move from hourly billing to subscriptions → https://practi.ai/hello

Timestamps:

00:00:00 What http://Abliteration.ai does, and who the frontier labs are shutting out

00:02:44 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!

00:02:56 Why defenders don't get the attackers' tools

00:04:16 "Inversion of control": letting customers set their own guardrails

00:06:47 Who's liable? The hammer analogy and the White House self-regulation pact

00:10:11 Every: For all of your incorporation, banking, payroll, benefits, accounting, taxes or other back-office administration needs, visit https://every.io.

00:13:10 Why AI labs publicize their scariest hacks

00:18:52 Customers: from cyber startups to Fortune 500 CISOs

00:19:56 Northwest Registered Agent: Got a new business idea? Northwest Registered Agent helps you bring it to life. Get a free domain, email, phone number, and more - with no purchase required! - Learn more at http://northwestregisteredagent.com/twistdomain

00:24:41 Chinese image and video models

00:27:20 Why most businesses still barely use AI

00:29:02 Ask Jason begins

00:29:24 Mathew Kerbis (Practi): What does AI do to the billable hour?

00:30:16 Odoo: The all-in-one business platform. Your first app is free! Get started today at https://Odoo.com/twist

00:32:45 Will subscriptions replace hourly billing?

00:37:27 Bruno Vilela: Are AI microdramas an ecosystem or a fad?

00:39:35 Lon's microdrama pitch to Snapchat and TikTok's PineDrama

00:48:09 Josh Ezell: Does AI change the bias against solo founders?

00:49:26 Jason's three-two-one framework and the risks founders must eliminate

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

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Today’s show:

Google 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 Graham suggested they build instead → https://stripe.com/

Timestamps:

00:00:00 Justin Kan on episode 900 (Feb 2019)

00:03:44 When Jason and Justin realized people watch gaming

00:05:52 Mahalo, Halo 3, and betting a company on 3% of its traffic

00:10:21 CLA: Get started with CLA's CPAs, consultants, and wealth advisors now at https://www.claconnect.com/withyou

00:11:42 The "zombie startup" years and Google's rejection

00:17:06 Instinct: the AI agent built for venture capitalists

00:19:43 Sentry: New users can get $240 in free credits when they go to https://sentry.io/twist and use the code TWIST26

00:28:08 Kozmo.com and the era of "make number go up"

00:30:06 Lightfield: Name one person who's ever enjoyed updating a CRM. Exactly. Lightfield's AI agent does it for you - it even prospects and books your meetings. Used by thousands of startups. Free at https://lightfield.app

00:32:57 Why AI companies have to monetize faster

00:34:00 Clip: Justin Kan on knowing yourself as a founder

00:37:24 An early rejection of "founder mode"?

00:38:33 Brian Chesky on episode 1735 (May 2023)

00:39:27 "I hope that's not the only idea you're working on"

00:43:27 What 10% of Airbnb for $150K is worth today

00:46:05 Obama O's and the Y Combinator interview

00:48:15 Why investors fund unkillable, attention-hacking founders

00:54:37 Clip: Chesky on AI, deepfakes, and authenticity

00:58:13 Is AI costing jobs or just making them busier?

01:05:04 Did AI create "millions of startups"?

Subscribe to our newsletters on Substack:

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Follow Lon:

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

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

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

Follow TWiST:

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This Week In Startups is made possible by:

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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 domain, email, phone number, and more - with no purchase required! Learn more at https://www.northwestregisteredagent....

00:23:26 Final scores, and how to enter round two

00:24:48 Incubating annotated inside a venture firm

00:29:46 Sentry - New users can get $240 in free credits when they go to https://sentry.io/twist and use the code TWIST

00:30:18 Ask Jason: a homeless founder with two startup ideas

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

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X:   / jason  

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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://superhuman.com/

World Labs: https://www.worldlabs.ai/

PrismML: https://prismml.com/

Liquid AI: https://www.liquid.ai/

Kagi: https://kagi.com/

Sonos: https://www.sonos.com/en-us/shop

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

Oura: https://ouraring.com/

Peloton: https://www.onepeloton.com/

Timestamps:

00:00:00 Will Ternus take "massively big swings"?

00:03:43 Round 1: ElevenLabs

00:04:46 Round 1: Disney

00:06:18 Round 2: Sony

00:08:22 Round 2: Boston Dynamics

00:09:23 Round 3: Perplexity

00:10:02 AD: PayPal is built for all business. Get started at https://paypal.com/business

00:11:52 Round 3: DigitalOcean

00:13:02 More picks: Etched

00:14:30 More picks: Lucid

00:15:58 More picks: Superhuman

00:16:48 More picks: Higgsfield and more

00:18:09 Fans make their selections

00:19:47 AD: Got a new business idea? @northwestagent helps you bring it to life. Get a free domain, email, phone number, and more, with no purchase required! Learn more at www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twistdomain

00:25:37 Stacy Salvi of The90 joins

00:29:28 AD: Thanks to our partner, Odoo, the all-in-one business platform. Your first app is free! Get started today at https://Odoo.com/twist

00:34:38 How the app calculates your Sunscore

00:42:12 Building a UV research dataset

00:45:09 Should The90 make a version for men?

Names & Links

Stacy Salvi - https://www.instagram.com/stacysalvi/

The90 - https://the90.com/

Subscribe to our newsletters on Substack:

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Follow Lon:

X: https://x.com/lons

Follow Jason:

X: https://twitter.com/Jason

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

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

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

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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 with $20M to take on Slack (TechCrunch) → https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/24/ando-eyes-slack-as-it-builds-team-messaging-platform-for-humans-and-agents-to-work-together/

Google's $900M investment in SpaceX's $1B round, January 2015 (VentureBeat) → https://venturebeat.com/technology/google-confirms-it-put-900m-into-spacexs-1b-round

Tesla ramps Optimus to several hundred robots a week; hands are the bottleneck (Electrek, summarizing The Information) → https://electrek.co/2026/09/25/tesla-optimus-production-ramp-hands-ai-generalization-problems/

Jensen Huang tells Ezra Klein forgetting basic math may not matter, and that he doesn't know his own address (Kotaku) → https://kotaku.com/nvidia-ceo-doesnt-care-that-kids-are-forgetting-basic-math-because-of-ai-i-actually-dont-know-my-address-2000737092

Sydney Sweeney's Novig "Just Sports" ad and the athlete backlash, including Amy Hunt's comment (Yahoo) → https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/celebrity/articles/sydney-sweeney-novig-ad-controversy-172900515.html

Nike exits the S&P 100 after 18 years (Fortune) → https://fortune.com/2026/09/08/nike-stock-plummets-sp500-market-cap-index/

The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth trailer: David Fincher directs Tarantino's script; IMAX Nov. 25, Netflix Dec. 23 (Variety) → https://variety.com/2026/film/news/the-further-mis-adventures-cliff-booth-trailer-brad-pitt-1236701901/

Timestamps:

0:00 Whoop fire alarm: Jason's dry-aged steak incident

1:30 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!

4:45 News: an OpenAI agent breached Australia's Medicare statistics portal

12:48 Scraper or hack? Australia's PM jumps into the AI safety debate

13:31 News: Google launches four TPUs into orbit for Project Suncatcher

18:27 Guest: Bryant Chou of PloyAI

20:07 AD: Paper is the legal backbone for thousands of startup founders and fund managers - including Launch. Use getpaper.ai/twist to get your cap table free for a year - or two years if you're leaving Carta.

21:11 Ploy's thesis: your website as your hardest working employee

27:05 Why a repeat unicorn founder went back to Y Combinator

38:55 The DOJ probe into a16z's Databricks and Fivetran board seats

44:57 "Nobody's thinking about you": Jason's stair story

45:17 Frontier models vs. your own model, and OpenAI's $2M YC token deal

54:04 News: Ando wants to replace Slack with agent-native chat

1:01:08 News: Tesla ramps Optimus to several hundred robots a week

1:04:48 Off-Duty: Jensen Huang tells Ezra Klein basic math may not matter

1:08:31 The MIT "Your Brain on ChatGPT" EEG study

1:09:57 Jason's five-part reset: sleep, diet, exercise, socializing, meditation

1:11:45 Off-Duty: Sydney Sweeney's Novig ad backlash

1:21:07 The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth trailer

1:23:41 Jason's first car: a 1970 Mustang Grande

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

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Follow Lon:

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Follow Jason:

X: https://twitter.com/Jason

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

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

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

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