This Week in Startups

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Today's show:

French ex-martial artist Bilal Kharouni is building his longevity startup from Okinawa, one of the world's "blue zones." (These are regions with the most people living long, healthy lives.) In this TWiST taping from Founder University in Tokyo, Jason investigates why a $200K raise in Japan can out-build a $2M raise in San Francisco, and why the best moat for biological AI isn't the model; it's the data no one else has.

Plus a tactical and practical discussion of product market fit, why Ekei killed a growing side business to maintain focus, Japan's fast-track for regenerative medicine, and hitting the upper limits for consumer longevity gadgets. Plus a live Q&A with Founder U attendees.

Guest

Bilal Kharouni on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bilal-kharouni/

Ekei Labs: https://www.ekeilabs.com/

Relevant Links

Okinawa Institute of Science and Tech (OIST): ****https://www.oist.jp/

Life Biosciences: https://www.lifebiosciences.com/

NewLimit: https://www.newlimit.com/

Centivax: https://www.centivax.com/

Medical Daily: "First Human Trial to Reverse Aging Gets FDA Clearance": https://www.medicaldaily.com/first-human-trial-reverse-aging-just-got-fda-clearance-what-epigenetic-reprogramming-actually-476076

Tim Friede snake venom article from Science: https://www.science.org/content/article/he-injected-himself-venom-decades-can-his-antibodies-help-snakebite-victims

Micro1: https://www.micro1.ai/

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

Station F Paris startup campus: https://stationf.co/

Japan Times: "PM Takaichi sleeps only 2-4 hours a night": https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/11/14/japan/politics/takaichi-sleep-overwork/

FDLI: "Japan's Regenerative Medicine Regulatory Pathways": https://www.fdli.org/2019/02/global-focus-japans-regenerative-medicine-regulatory-pathways-encouraging-innovation-and-patient-access/

FDA: "Right to Try": https://www.fda.gov/patients/learn-about-expanded-access-and-other-treatment-options/right-try

STAT News: "Are Blue Zones Real?": https://www.statnews.com/2026/05/04/are-blue-zones-real-new-scrutiny-longevity-hot-spots/

Timestamps: 0:00 Founder University is back in Japan!

4:05 What Ekei Labs does

5:13 Why Japan is a longevity hub

8:52 The AI biological moat

10:05 Sentry - Your team should be focused on shipping features — not chasing down bugs. New users can get $240 in free credits when they go to https://sentry.io/twist and use the code TWIST

15:58 Right to try and the ethics of experimental therapies

22:30 Agree.com - Stop chasing invoices and automate your entire contract-to-cash stack. Go to https://agree.com and tell them Jason sent you to get 50% off for life!

24:49 Japan's fast-track regenerative medicine law

26:03 Raising in Japan vs. the US

31:32 Northwest Registered Agent - Get more when you start your business with Northwest. In 10 clicks and 10 minutes, you can form your company and walk away with a real business identity — Learn more at https://northwestregisteredagent.com/twist

40:44 Why Ekei killed a profitable service to focus

47:11 Have Blue Zones been debunked?

48:56 How socialization may extend lifespan

51:07 Founder Q&A: Booked vs. forecast revenue

55:42 Amazon's "bar raiser" framework

1:03:31 Social robots and loneliness

1:04:29 Jason on health and hustle culture

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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:

*Cybersecurity has long focused on cleaning up a system AFTER a breach but Ent founder Brandon Dixon says that's backwards. He just raised a $100M seed round to put an AI agent on everyone's company laptops that catches the risky clicks, leaked files, or rogue agents BEFORE they wreck havoc.

PLUS Clawra creator David Im return swith his new project, Sume's Avatar, a multi-model orchestration layer that generates 60-second UGC videos from a single prompt… and gets it right on the first try, rather than falling back on trial and error.

Guests:

Brandon Dixon on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandonsdixon/

Ent: ****https://ent.ai/

David Im on X: https://x.com/davidim

Sume: https://www.sume.com/

Relevant Links:

WSJ: "Cyber Security Startup Ent Raises $100 Million in Seed Funding": https://www.wsj.com/pro/cybersecurity/cyber-startup-ent-raises-100-million-in-seed-funding-a3e9b6c6

Microsoft Security Copilot: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/business/ai-machine-learning/microsoft-security-copilot

Engadget: "Meta 'pausing' employee tracking program…": https://www.engadget.com/2199458/meta-is-pausing-employee-tracking-program-after-it-let-the-whole-company-see-sensitive-data/

Seedance 2.0: https://seedance2.ai/

Timestamps:

0:00 Intro: Why AI + cybersecurity is the hot combo right now

2:29 How INT stops breaches before they happen

4:56 AI is giving non-technical employees dangerous new powers

10:26 Vanta - Compliance and security shouldn't be a deal-breaker for startups to win new business. Vanta makes it easy for companies to get a SOC 2 report fast. Get $1,000 off for a limited time at https://www.vanta.com/twist

13:54 Why on-device AI beats cloud-based security

20:08 Superhuman - Get AI that works where you work. Unlock your Superhuman potential at https://superhuman.com

25:18 INT's business model and go-to-market

30:26 YSecurity - The on-demand security team for startups. Need enterprise-grade security without hiring a $400k CISO? YSecurity gives you 40+ expert engineers, matched to exactly what you need, by the hour, with your first six hours completely free. Go to https://YSecurity.io/TWIST

34:18 David M. of Sumi Labs: one-shotting AI video

36:10 Live demo: Sumi's video orchestration API

40:05 Consistent faces, 60-second videos, and who's buying

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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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The dawn of surgery bots + buy a home for $250 (w/ Andromeda & Mogul) | E2313

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Today's show:

*Andromeda Surgical is building the autonomy layer that could one day allow robots to perform surgery. Rather than building their own intricate, complex hardware, Andromeda uses off-the-shelf arms from a German manufacturer, and focuses on the software that will allow doctors to operate it from an iPad.

Plus Mogul co-founder and CEO Alex Blackwood shows Jason how his platform lets anyone buy fractional shares of rental homes for as little as $250, earning monthly dividends, appreciation, and tax benefits without the headache of being someone's landlord.

It's a founder double feature on a brand new TWiST.

Guests:

Nick Damiano on X: https://x.com/nickdamian0

Andromeda Surgical: https://www.andromedasurgical.com/

Alex Blackwood on X: https://x.com/blackwoodtweets

Mogul: https://www.mogul.club/

Relevant Links:

KUKA: https://www.kuka.com/

Intuitive Surgical (and Da Vinci 5): https://www.intuitive.com/en-us

Neuralink: https://neuralink.com/

Padsplit: https://www.padsplit.com/

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

The Syndicate: https://thesyndicate.com/

Timestamps:

0:00 The iPad controlled surgery bot

5:46 Building "Google Maps for the body"

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

14:28 What is a "sous surgeon"

20:46 CLA - Innovation takes balance. CLA's CPAs, consultants, and wealth advisors can help you get from startup to where you want to end up. Get started now at https://www.claconnect.com/withyou

24:30 The Neuralink connection

29:40 Understanding Mogul's business model

31:01 MongoDB - AI-assisted and agentic coding is helping you build faster than ever. Start building at https://MongoDB.com/ai

33:32 So who manages the homes?

36:50 Dividends vs. Appreciation

44:57 How Mogul picks markets

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

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

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Today's show:

Hustle Fund's Eric Bahn and Chapter One's Jeff Morris Jr. join our venture capital roundtable directly following the news breaking that Stripe wants to buy PayPal. The possible transaction highlights how little interest today's leading startups have in going public any time soon. With host Alex Wilhelm, Bahn and Morris dug into when startups should burn the boats à la Fin, physical AI as the next frontier, the power of Silicon Valley groupthink, and how startups are approaching the first days of widespread, company-specific AI evals!

Guest links:

Eric Bahn https://x.com/ericbahn

Hustle Fund https://www.hustlefund.vc

Jeff Morris Jr. https://x.com/jmj

Chapter One https://chapterone.com

Show links:

Stripe wants to buy PayPal https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/stripe-advent-offer-buy-paypal-more-than-53-billion-sources-say-2026-07-15/

Flex https://www.flex.one/

Webflow https://webflow.com/

Oak https://www.oak.id/

Fin selling to Salesforce https://www.salesforce.com/news/press-releases/2026/06/15/salesforce-signs-definitive-agreement-to-acquire-fin/

Erebor https://erebor.bank/

"Competition is for losers" https://www.wsj.com/articles/peter-thiel-competition-is-for-losers-1410535536

Chapter One piece on the value of software https://jamesin.substack.com/p/some-areas-weve-been-investing-in

Timestamps:

0:00 Eric Bahn (Hustle Fund) & Jeff Morris Jr. (Chapter One) join the show!

1:35 Stripe's reported $53B offer for PayPal

6:29 Why founders don't want to go public

10:08 Agree.com - Stop chasing invoices and automate your entire contract-to-cash stack. Go to https://agree.com and tell them Jason sent you to get 50% off for life!

15:16 When is it time to burn the boats?

20:12 MongoDB - AI-assisted and agentic coding is helping you build faster than ever. Start building at https://MongoDB.com/ai

21:16 Does VC need an AI revolution?

30:50 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.

32:36 Custom evals, open source models, and avoiding vendor lock-in

36:37 Physical AI and robotics as the next frontier

37:42 Oak's $60M seed and startup clusters chasing agent infrastructure

40:43 Escaping the Silicon Valley "think tank"

48:28 Consumer AI's missing wave

1:00:18 AI regulation and how to get it right

1:12:01 Where to find our guests and wrap-up!

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Today's show:

*Jason spent $11 building out PodMeme, an AI tool that tracks down the best segments from top podcasts about a specific topic, then stitches them together into a single stream. His post laying out how he did it, featuring a simple screenshot of the product, got all the way to 1.1M views in just a few days.

It's a simple fact: builders love to see what other people are building, and growing your new project "in public," sharing your journey on social media, is a great way to develop buzz around your product before it even exists.

Today's guest Thibault "Tibo" Louis-Lucas walks us through how he grew products like Tweet Hunter and Taplio on his social media account, using social media buzz and a focus on tools for creators to very quickly expand to over $1M ARR.

PLUS why Apple would only sue OpenAI if they knew they had them dead to rights… why Uber and Waymo are fighting over DC robotaxis… Jason's response to the public backlash against surveillance startup Flock Safety… and the guys remember iconic New Zealand actor Sam Neill.

Guest:

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

Revid.ai: https://www.revid.ai/

Tweet Hunter: https://tweethunter.io/

Taplio: https://taplio.com/

Relevant Links:

Lemlist: https://www.lemlist.com/

GRIN influencer marketing: https://grin.co/

TechCrunch: "Apple Sues OpenAI": https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/10/apple-sues-openai-over-alleged-trade-secret-theft/

We Must Act Now statement: https://www.wemustactnow.ai/

TechCrunch: "Uber's Robotaxi Lobbying Effort": https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/13/ubers-robotaxi-lobbying-effort-has-put-it-on-a-collision-course-with-waymo/

DC Autonomous Vehicle Deployment Authorization Amendment of 2026: https://www.billtrack50.com/billdetail/2003462

DoorDash: Meet Dot: https://about.doordash.com/en-us/dot

Flock Safety: https://www.flocksafety.com/

DeFlock: https://deflock.org/

Gigazine: Flock accuses Deflock of being a "terrorist org": https://gigazine.net/gsc_news/en/20260209-flock-ceo-deflock/#gsc.tab=0

Unifi AI Security Systems: https://ui.com/physical-security

Jason's PodMeme post: https://x.com/Jason/status/2076231055443440105

Jason responds to Justine Bateman: https://x.com/Jason/status/2076326740050206959

NYT Sam Neill obituary: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/13/movies/sam-neill-dead.html

"Possession" trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLXW-oVbTxE

FanEdit: https://fanedit.org/forums/news-publisher/

"Manhunter" trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLqHlg2fAnE

HBO "The Man Will Burn" trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRhUYPtp6Ao

Timestamps:

0:00 There's no air conditioning in Paris 7:27 Tibo Maker's "ship 1 product a week" challenge 9:24 The power of building products in public 10:59 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 12:04 Excitement for JCal's "PodMeme" set-up 15:40 Compounding an audience and enlisting influencers 19:13 Your follower count is not important any more 20:59 PayPal - Built for payments, growth, and agentic. Paypal Open, built for all business. Visit https://paypalopen.com to get started 22:28 How Tibo got banned on LinkedIn twice 28:48 Apple sues OpenAI 30:59 Northwest Registered Agent - Get more when you start your business with Northwest. In 10 clicks and 10 minutes, you can form your company and walk away with a real business identity — Learn more at https://northwestregisteredagent.com/twist 38:44 How OpenAI should have handled the New York Times 45:10 DC's new robotaxi bill 52:06 Managing the AV and delivery-bot transition 53:23 Economists warn of AI job displacement 1:07:00 How Jason would fix Flock's messaging 1:17:26 Remembering Sam Neill 1:23:05 Lon's Dream AI edit 1:26:35 HBO's Burning Man docuseries

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

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

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

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

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Today's show:

*America posted 400,000 farm jobs last year, and fewer than 1% got a single domestic applicant. Danny Bernstein of Reservoir believes it's time to start automating this backbreaking labor, like picking stone fruit in 110°F temperatures. So he built the world's first on-farm robotics incubator on 40 acres of California farmland. Here's why he argues that automating farms isn't just a new opportunity, it's a national security issue.

PLUS Jason responded to Gal Shir's viral "AI beat me at design" tweet, got into a kerfuffle with Figma CEO Dylan Field, and wound up making a brand new J-Trade. AND we're talking about the Dept. of Education's new "do no harm" policy, the Brown University AI cheating chart that's blowing up social media, and Lon has fresh streaming recommendations in an all-new Off Duty.

Guest:

Danny Bernstein on X: https://x.com/bernsteind

Reservoir Farms: https://reservoir.co/

Reservoir VC: https://reservoir.vc/

Relevant Links:

Bonsai Robotics: https://bonsairobotics.ai/

Root AI acquired by AppHarvest: https://www.therobotreport.com/root-ai-acquired-by-appharvest-for-60m/

John Deere: https://www.deere.com/en-us/

Western Growers Association: https://www.wga.com/

Tanimura & Antle: https://www.taproduce.com/

Naturipe Berry Growers: https://www.naturipefarms.com/

Driscoll's: https://www.driscolls.com/

Taylor Farms: https://www.taylorfarms.com/

The Wonderful Company: https://www.wonderful.com/

Capital Factory: https://www.capitalfactory.com/

Gal Shir "quitting design" post: https://x.com/galshirart/status/2074854464729629060

Dylan Field response to Gal Shir: https://x.com/zoink/status/2075290218660298807

JCal response to Field and "J-Trade": https://x.com/Jason/status/2075481565115654305

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

Dept. of Education: "Do No Harm" policy announcement: https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-issues-final-rule-hold-all-colleges-and-universities-accountable-low-earning-programs

NPR coverage on Dept. of Education earnings test: https://www.npr.org/2026/06/30/nx-s1-5835631/turner-camhi-do-no-harm-college-loans

Paul Graham "cheating chart" post: https://x.com/paulg/status/2075031014628311236

Off Duty Recommendations:

"Lioness" on Paramount+: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNRQ0PR4a8U

"Mayor of Kingstown" on Paramount+: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkQzvwxOp0s

"Human Vapor" on Netflix: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xe6dRKVAb8

"Sugar" on Apple TV+: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twvPGxuEOEA

"Wind River" (now on Netflix): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZgN0dpFoaE

"Not Fade Away" by Peter Barton & Laurence Shames: https://www.amazon.com/Not-Fade-Away-Short-Lived/dp/1579546889

Timestamps:

0:00 Jason's ongoing World Tour

1:43 Danny Bernstein joins live from Reservoir Farms

3:38 What is "specialty crop agriculture"

5:15 Why strawberries are the "white whale" of AgTech

6:55 The labor crisis in farming

9:20 Why AgTech never scaled

9:51 NetSuite - For the first time, you can try NetSuite Next for free. If your revenues are at least in the seven figures, go to https://NetSuite.ai/TWIST

10:51 Inside Reservoir's business model

17:44 Agriculture as national security

20:09 Squarespace - Turn your idea into a beautiful website! Go to https://www.squarespace.com/twist for a free trial. When you're ready to launch, use offer code TWIST to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

22:15 Did AI beat a designer at design?

30:56 YSecurity - The on-demand security team for startups. Need enterprise-grade security without hiring a $400k CISO? YSecurity gives you 40+ expert engineers, matched to exactly what you need, by the hour, with your first six hours completely free. Go to https://YSecurity.io/TWIST

37:23 The "do no harm" college earnings test

43:27 Brown University students cheated on their midterms

52:22 Lon's streaming recommendations

59:46 Jason's new snake grabber

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

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

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Today's show:

How many startups matter in tech? Fewer than you think. That's why venture capitalists are tripping over themselves to get onto their cap tables, no matter the cost. Why? Footwork's Nikhil Basu Trivedi argues that the Valley has never been more "power-law-pilled" than it is today. Basu Trivedi joined Cendana Capital's Michael Kim and TWiST's Alex Wilhelm to go deep on secondary markets, the state of startup M&A, why the SaaSpocalypse may be temporary, and what could trigger a retrenchment of the AI trade. It's Wednesday, so it's time for our venture capital roundtable to go deep on how VCs are investing today, and where on the horizon they have their eyes fixed!

Guest links:

Nikhil Basu Trivedi https://x.com/nbt

Footwork https://www.footwork.vc/

Michael Kim https://x.com/MKRocks

Cendana Capital https://www.cendanacapital.com/

Show links:

The USVC-Anduril blowup https://x.com/ankurnagpal/status/2072701195714531398

Kline Hill Cendana Partners https://www.secondariesinvestor.com/kline-hill-and-cendana-raise-400m-for-second-vc-secondaries-fund/

GPTZero's exit https://gptzero.me/news/preserving-whats-human/

Salesforce buys Fin https://www.salesforce.com/news/press-releases/2026/06/15/salesforce-signs-definitive-agreement-to-acquire-fin/

Vercel buys Better Auth https://vercel.com/blog/vercel-acquires-better-auth

Figma buys Bud https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/07/figma-acquires-team-behind-a-vibe-coding-app/

Protoge https://withprotege.ai/

Windborne https://windbornesystems.com/

Etched https://www.etched.com/

Lovable's reported raise https://sifted.eu/articles/lovable-300m-13-2bn-valuation

Josh Browder https://x.com/Joshuabrowder

Timestamps:

0:00 Introduction: Nikhil Basu Trivedi (Footwork) & Michael Kim (Cendana Capital)

1:59 The Anduril vs. USVC secondary market blowup

4:08 Why Silicon Valley is 'power-law-pilled'

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

9:37 Information asymmetry in the secondary markets

9:45 Every.io — For all of your incorporation, banking, payroll, benefits, accounting, taxes or other back-office administration needs, visit https://every.io

15:02 Is SPV fraud smoke or fire?

16:32 Superhuman acquires GPTZero

19:54 Agree.com - Stop chasing invoices and automate your entire contract-to-cash stack. Go to https://agree.com and tell them Jason sent you to get 50% off for life!

21:10 The M&A wave

27:19 The SaaSpocalypse debate

29:59 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%.

30:44 Data's moment in the energy → compute → data loop

35:01 Where will AI value accrue?

40:04 What could cause an AI correction?

42:17 Why some companies are "too big to miss"

46:23 China's possible open-weight model ban

53:28 Young founders: Etched, Thiel Fellows, Z Fellows, Neo

55:33 Portfolio spotlight: WindBorne's weather balloons and data moat

58:47 Michael's favorite fund manager: Josh Browder

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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:

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

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

Guests:

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

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

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

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

Relevant Links:

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

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

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

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

Susa Ventures: https://susaventures.com/

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

METR: https://metr.org/

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

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

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

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

Timestamps:

0:00 Hanover Park & the fund admin problem

3:32 Why funds outsource instead of building

5:44 Why fund accounting is so complex

10:38 The "one-click migration" goal

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

13:51 Context vs. intelligence gaps

16:11 No PMs, No Designers

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

23:18 This is a $100T opportunity

25:36 Flashback w/ Dylan Field of Figma

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

31:22 Pre-AI enterprise security worries

36:30 SaaS overload and SaaS burnout

37:30 The evolution of Figma pricing

42:38 The rise and fall of Mahalo dot com

51:38 The work-from-home revolution begins

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Thank you to our partners:

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

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This Week In Startups is made possible by:

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Today's show:

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

Guest Links:

Aileen Lee https://x.com/aileenlee

Cowboy VC https://cowboy.vc

Mike Maples https://x.com/m2jr

Floodgate https://www.floodgate.com

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

Lere Hippeau https://www.lererhippeau.com

Timestamps:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Today's show:

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

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

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

Guest:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Relevant Links:

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

Salesforce Ventures: https://salesforceventures.com/

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

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

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

LAUNCH: https://www.launch.co

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

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

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

Timestamps:

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

1:22 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations — interviews, meetings, calls — you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at https://Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!

3:21 Chamath's origin story

7:54 Tom Sawyer entrepreneurship

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

16:25 The $5 trillion software market

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

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

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

35:00 How product development lost its way

45:00 Regulated industries are the beachhead

50:00 Raising the $135M Series A

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

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

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

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

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

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

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