This Week in Startups

This Week In Startups is made possible by:

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/bernie-sanders-ai-fund-bill-sam-altman-1000-payments/

Stanley Druckenmiller's AI-written WSJ op-ed (Axios) → https://axios.com/2026/08/26/stanley-druckenmiller-ai-writing-wsj-op-ed

Claude Opus 5.5 and GPT-6 Sol/Luna launch the same day with price cuts (SiliconANGLE) → https://siliconangle.com/2026/09/22/anthropic-releases-claude-opus-5-5-and-openai-counters-with-two-cheaper-gpt-6-models/

Zipline: LAUNCH's "miss," later backed through the syndicate → https://www.flyzipline.com/

Micro1 → https://www.micro1.ai/

Founder University → https://www.founder.university/ [VERIFY]

The Syndicate: angel invest alongside LAUNCH (apply, waitlist) → https://thesyndicate.com/

Timestamps:

0:00 What seed rounds looked like then: Fitbit's $2M seed

2:38 Jenny's Techstars NYC years and the two-unicorn mug

6:10 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!

7:51 All-In Summit: Trump calls Jensen Huang onstage. Staged or not?

8:56 P(doom) roundtable + Dave's AI sovereign wealth fund prediction

10:08 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.com/twistdomain

13:35 The AI intel error that nearly triggered a US-China incident

17:44 "McClure's Law": a human with AI is the real risk

19:59 Odoo - The all-in-one business platform. Your first app is free! Get started today at https://Odoo.com/twist

21:37 Stripe + OpenRouter: an anti-fraud play, not a routing play?

23:07 Seed valuations: median $8M (2017) to $28M today

23:58 Instinct: $2.5B to a reported $10B in weeks

29:49 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.

44:01 Opus 5.5 vs. GPT-6 Sol: the same-day price war

46:51 Gun to your head: open-weight models or frontier labs?

51:00 Secondaries: the top 30 names vs. everyone else

52:30 Why fintech and healthcare are unloved (and Jason's Robinhood bet)

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

Check out the TWIST500: https://www.twist500.com

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

Follow Lon:

X: https://x.com/lons

Follow Jason:

X: https://twitter.com/Jason

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

Thank you to our partners:

(0:00) PARTNER - AD BLURB

(0:00) PARTNER - AD BLURB

(0:00) PARTNER - AD BLURB

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

Subscribe to our Substack Newsletters!

TWiST: https://twistartups.substack.com/

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

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

Follow TWiST:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartups

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekin

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartups

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartups

Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com

This Week In Startups is made possible by:

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 & Jev" → https://typesafe.ai/blog/introducing-system-one-models-and-jev

GeekWire: "Amazon blocks Meta's Muse AI assistant in new standoff over agentic shopping" → https://www.geekwire.com/2026/amazon-blocks-metas-muse-ai-assistant-in-new-standoff-over-agentic-shopping/

Meta's Muse — the AI agent Amazon blocked from shopping on its site → https://www.meta.ai/

"Meta's Dina Powell McCormick: The Case for Data Centers, Backlash, AI Job Boom & Meta's Future" (All-In Podcast, YouTube) — the clip discussed on the show → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp2IbgJ5Z-8

Robocurve's RoboHarm report — the robot-safety benchmark discussed on air → https://robocurve.org/roboharm/

RoboHarm on GitHub (tasks, protocol, and tooling) → https://github.com/robocurve/roboharm

Timestamps:

0:00 Elon Musk revives the Hyperloop: a 30-minute Austin–San Antonio tunnel

1:03 A brief history of Hyperloop and the white paper

8:56 Vanta - Get $1000 off your SOC 2 at https://www.vanta.com/twist

16:46 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!

20:32 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%.

21:40 News: Trump proposes an "AI Force," an AI czar, and renaming AI itself

22:49 "Get back to work, nerds"

30:22 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

31:56 TypeSafe's Jev, a "System One" model built to decide, not chat

39:49 Amazon blocks Meta's Muse AI agent

49:57 Dina Powell McCormick's tense All-In Summit exchange with Jason

1:02:38 Off-Duty: Robocurve's RoboHarm benchmark

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

Check out the TWIST500: https://www.twist500.com

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

Follow Lon:

X: https://x.com/lons

Follow Jason:

X: https://twitter.com/Jason

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

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

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

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

Follow TWiST:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartups

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekin

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartups

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartups

Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com

This Week In Startups is made possible by:

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: Thomas Wolf, co-founder & chief science officer, Hugging Face

1:58 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!

4:17 Two years to build Microduck

8:43 How Hugging Face actually makes money: storage, not tokens

10:16 Superhuman - 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

17:18 Vibe-coding robotics: "train this new behavior for me"

20:00 PayPal - Pay zero processing fees on your first $100K in eligible PayPal payment volume. Learn more at https://paypal.com/business

23:20 Thomas Wolf's P-doom and the airplane-safety analogy

25:18 The Nvidia acquisition and what changes for open models

29:57 Odoo - The all-in-one business platform. Your first app is free! Get started today at https://Odoo.com/twist

38:39 Inside the Hugging Face breach: stolen credentials and basic mistakes

43:33 News: Newsom's executive order and the frontier-model "kill switch"

45:04 Jason's counter-proposal: liability, insurance, and KYC for AI

1:00:08 News: Lucid and Bolt to put 25,000 robotaxis on European roads

1:10:01 News: Snap opens pre-orders for $2,195 Specs AR glasses

1:21:43 Off-Duty: Clavicular, the All-In Summit

1:31:01 Off-Duty: Physical 100 goes to Italy and Mexico

Subscribe to TWiST on Substack: https://twistartups.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/

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

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

Follow TWiST:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartups

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekin

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartups

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartups

Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com

The 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

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 Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcp

Follow Jason:

X: https://twitter.com/Jason

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

Thank you to our partner!

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

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

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

Check out our suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@thisweekininc

Follow TWiST:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartups

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekin

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartups

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartups

Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com

This Week In Startups is made possible by:

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 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

21:08 (Question) John Wright: do you have to carve out more time now just to keep up with the tools?

25:42 Claude's caution vs. Grok's "hold my beer"

26:33 (Question) John Wright, part two: do you expect founders to get more done now

26:55 The three buckets: 10x, 5x, and the 20% crowd

29:22 CLA - Get started with CLA's CPAs, consultants, and wealth advisors now at https://www.claconnect.com/withyou

30:01 (Question) Ray, Vortex Console: can human-in-the-loop actually work at enterprise scale?

33:25 (Question) Kristen Dahl: how do you explain AI risk to your 76-year-old mom?

35:13 Why the chaos only happens at OpenAI and Anthropic

43:36 (Question) David Rosenberg, NYU physics: what's behind the academic backlash to AI solving Navier-Stokes?

53:35 Advice for a 20-year-old: find two smart people, build weird things

54:29 (Question) David's follow-up: any chance of an All-In Summit scholarship

56:21 (Question) Mo: can a cannabis cultivation facility be converted into a data center

1:02:30 (Question) Mo's follow-up: Mark Cuban's pickleball courts and the efficiency curve

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

Check out the TWIST500: https://www.twist500.com

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

Follow Lon:

X: https://x.com/lons

Follow Jason:

X: https://twitter.com/Jason

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

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

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

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

Follow TWiST:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartups

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekin

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartups

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartups

Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com

This Week In Startups is made possible by:

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: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmZ-FuBThuQ

Huffington Post on the Robin Williams-Disney feud: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/robin-williams-disney-feud-aladdin-picasso_uk_6a7cc304e4b079a0b2ec2233

Keith Roma: the 344th firefighter lost, remembered: https://www.firerescue1.com/9-11/articles/the-firefighter-everyone-forgot-about-on-911-142cs6WyLmn2FDib/

Timestamps:

0:00 Remembering 9/11, 25 Years Later

6:41 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!

9:10 Are we about to nationalize the AI industry?

9:53 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%.

20:30 Odoo - The all-in-one business platform. Your first app is free! Get started today at https://Odoo.com/twist

21:45 Apple's foldable iPhone Duo

29:43 Upwork - Upwork helps businesses find highly skilled freelance professionals for specialized work. Post your job for free at https://upwork.com

38:04 Tibo Louis-Lucas returns to TWiST

41:47 The affiliate update email that runs on autopilot

46:40 Why you should "stack" multiple AI subscriptions

52:57 Squad's ideal customer is a solo founder

54:11 Jason digs Hal Jordan on "Lanterns"

1:00:19 Lon reviews Apple's "Dark Matter"

1:03:39 Remembering Robin Williams

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

Check out the TWIST500: https://www.twist500.com

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

Follow Lon:

X: https://x.com/lons

Follow Jason:

X: https://twitter.com/Jason

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

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

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

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

Follow TWiST:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartups

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekin

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartups

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartups

Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com

This Week In Startups is made possible by:

Wilson Sonsini: https://www.wsgr.com/en/

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.twist500.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/

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

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

Follow TWiST:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartups

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekin

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartups

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartups

Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com

This Week In Startups is made possible by:

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

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

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

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/2026/09/08/openai-fought-dirty-on-career-making-math-problem-says-nyu-mathematician/

Savvy Wealth — https://www.wealthmanagement.com/ria-news/savvy-wealth-raises-100m-valuation-hits-600m

Augmodo — https://www.augmodo.com/

E2B — https://e2b.dev/

Daptic — https://www.daptic.com/

Timestamps:

0:00 Jacob Coxon quits Anthropic: "crunch time" and "endgame"

4:53 Evan Hubinger: >10% odds AI kills all humans in a decade

11:22 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.com/twistdomain

12:23 "You have succeeded in scaring the bejesus out of Americans"

14:59 Jobs, the wealth divide, and which industries get wiped out first

20:07 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

21:09 Savvy Wealth's $100M round

26:52 The Kalanick story and why Jason built a syndicate backstop

29:04 Vanta - Get $1000 off your SOC 2 at https://www.vanta.com/twist

30:16 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!

32:05 Meta ships Muse

32:56 Can Meta be trusted

35:29 Threads Metrics

49:27 Robinhood's free-share referral

51:16 NYU's Tristan Buckmaster accuses OpenAI of fighting dirty on Navier-Stokes

57:43 Jason: "It's a trap"

59:03 Harvey goes open-weight, Go.AI on-prem, Covenant Labs

1:12:22 High performing portfolio companies

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

Check out the TWIST500: https://www.twist500.com

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

Follow Lon:

X: https://x.com/lons

Follow Jason:

X: https://twitter.com/Jason

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

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

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

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

Follow TWiST:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartups

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekin

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartups

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartups

Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com

This Week In Startups is made possible by:

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 test vs. a $10 one

18:08 Should a 25-year-old get a whole-body MRI?

20:42 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.com/twistdomain

24:23 Why medicine is still running on paper

25:41 The study where the chatbot beat the doctors

27:02 micro1, doctors in the loop, and why AI still needs guardrails

28:50 Wearables, records, and the CD-ROM problem

30:07 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.

32:51 The wearable that caught Jason's Covid

34:31 Alcohol, sugar, and why almost nobody tests your insulin

40:00 GLP-1s: Jason's 213-to-168 story

42:22 Microdosing GLP-1s, muscle loss, and "skinny fat"

48:48 Overdiagnosing mental illness: SSRIs, Adderall, and a lost decade

50:17 The biology underneath depression and anxiety

54:32 Psychedelics: ketamine, ibogaine, and the second revolution in psychiatry

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

Check out the TWIST500: https://www.twist500.com

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

Follow Lon:

X: https://x.com/lons

Follow 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/

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

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

Follow TWiST:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartups

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekin

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartups

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartups

Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com

This Week In Startups is made possible by:

Wilson Sonsini

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

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/

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

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

Follow TWiST:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartups

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekin

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartups

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartups

Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com