This Week in Startups

70:31

Jason Mentors The Next Generation + Why AI Is Bad at...

This Week in Startups ·

2026/10/05

This Week In Startups is made possible by:Vanta: https://www.vanta.com/twist DigitalOcean: https://do.co/twist Sentry: http://sentry.io/twist Plaud: http://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

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53:15

Inside The Startup Building Uncensored AI...

This Week in Startups ·

2026/10/03

This Week In Startups is made possible by:Every.io: http://every.io/ Northwest Registered Agent: https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twistdomain Odoo: http://Odoo.com/twist Plaud: http://Plaud.ai/twist Today’s show: What can AI do with the guardrails OFF? Devon Thomas of Abliteration.ai thinks defenders should have access to the same kinds of tools, rather than having one hand tied behind their backs. Then, on Ask Jason, learn what AI means for the billable hour from a legal-tech

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78:04

Justin Kan & Brian Chesky: The Rejections That Built...

This Week in Startups ·

2026/09/30

This Week In Startups is made possible by:Plaud: http://Plaud.ai/twist CLA: https://claconnect.com/tech Sentry: http://sentry.io/twist Lightfield: http://sentry.io/twist 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

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40:46

Jason’s Put a $5K Bounty on His Dream Chrome...

This Week in Startups ·

2026/09/28

This Week In Startups is made possible by:Every.io: http://every.io/ Northwest Registered Agent: www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twistdomain Sentry: http://sentry.io/twist Today’s show: A product that would have cost $500,000 to build in 2006 now costs less than a used car. Jason put up $5,000 on an idea he'd been sitting on for 20 years, and so far, we’ve received dozens of amazing submissions from vibecode experts. See how well the Top 3 demos fare, and which app was so good, Jason’s already

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50:20

The 5 Companies Apple Must Buy

This Week in Startups ·

2026/09/28

This Week In Startups is made possible by: PayPal - https://paypal.com/business Northwest Registered Agent - https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twistdomain Odoo - https://Odoo.com/twist Today’s show: Timestamps: 0:00 Will Ternus take "massively big swings"? 3:43 Round 1: ElevenLabs 4:46 Round 1: Disney 6:18 Round 2: Sony 8:22 Round 2: Boston Dynamics 9:23 Round 3: Perplexity 10:02 AD: PayPal is built for all business. Get started at https://paypal.com/business 11:52 Round 3:

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85:53

A rogue OpenAI agent hacked Australia’s government....

This Week in Startups ·

2026/09/25

This Week In Startups is made possible by:https://lightfield.app/ http://getpaper.ai/twist https://conservationfund.org/ http://Plaud.ai/twist https://www.athena.com/jcal Today’s show: An OpenAI agent breached Australia's Medicare statistics portal in June, and it took 84 days for the Frontier Lab to publicly acknowledge it. Jason and Lon dig into whether this is an important cautionary tale about alignment, or if PM Anthony Albanese looking to join the AI conversation. Then Bryant Chou of

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87:02

VCs Would Bet on Open-Source AI Over OpenAI and...

This Week in Startups ·

2026/09/23

This Week In Startups is made possible by:Northwest Registered Agent: https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twistdomain Odoo: http://Odoo.com/twist Rippling: http://Rippling.ai/twist Plaud: http://Plaud.ai/twist Harmonic: http://harmonic.ai/ 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

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69:39

Elon's New Hyperloop, Trump's AI Rename, and a Model...

This Week in Startups ·

2026/09/21

This Week In Startups is made possible by:Vanta: https://www.vanta.com/twist DigitalOcean: http://do.co/twist Lightfield: https://lightfield.app/ Plaud: http://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

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93:39

Hugging Face Co-Founder on Open-Source, Microduck,...

This Week in Startups ·

2026/09/18

This Week In Startups is made possible by:Superhuman: http://superhuman.com/ Paypal: http://paypal.launch.co Odoo: http://Odoo.com/twist Plaud: http://Plaud.ai/twist Harmonic: http://harmonic.ai/ 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

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93:39

Hugging Face Co-Founder on Open-Source, Microduck,...

This Week in Startups ·

2026/09/18

This Week In Startups is made possible by:Superhuman:⁠ http://superhuman.com/⁠ Paypal:⁠ http://paypal.launch.co⁠ Odoo:⁠ http://Odoo.com/twist⁠ Plaud:⁠ http://Plaud.ai/twist⁠ Harmonic:⁠ http://harmonic.ai/⁠ 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

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19:23

90% of AI prototypes never reach production (w/...

This Week in Startups ·

2026/09/15

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

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01:11:15

Ask Jason: AI Extinction, Grok's Rogue Meme Coin &...

This Week in Startups ·

2026/09/14

This Week In Startups is made possible by: Quo: http://quo.com/TWiST The Conservation Fund: https://conservationfund.org CLA: https://app.notion.com/p/withyou-help-eb83a84d32cf43f59af13cb11e2f56c3?source=copy_link 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

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01:12:38

The Pentagon Wants Equity in AI Startups | E2336

This Week in Startups ·

2026/09/11

This Week In Startups is made possible by: DigitalOcean — Want to see what building on a true AI-native platform looks like? Head to do.co/twist to start building on DigitalOcean's AI-Native Cloud today — and cut your AI workload costs by up to 50%. Odoo: The all-in-one business platform. Your first app is free! Get started for today at Odoo.com/twist Upwork helps businesses find highly skilled freelance professionals for specialized work. Post your job for free at upwork.com Today's show: The

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22:35

Becki DeGraw on founder vesting, advisor equity & the...

This Week in Startups ·

2026/09/10

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

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01:21:25

Did OpenAI Steal the Navier-Stokes Solution? | E2335

This Week in Startups ·

2026/09/09

This Week In Startups is made possible by: Northwest Registered Agent - https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twistdomain NetSuite - https://www.netsuite.ai/twist Vanta - http://www.vanta.com/twist Check out a full transcript and summary of today's show, created by Plaud: https://web.plaud.ai/s/pub_c2b45bfe-abad-43ce-b7ef-41118f55f738::Vo2MH6PuXBzTCaxKRDjHH0zu8FbzgDpQL5OnfBfMzLP22CQRxciqE74Mq4YDD-LwYXGZCazgIeglPuwC Today's show: An Anthropic researcher quit this week,

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58:29

Dr. Mark Hyman on Function Health & GLP-1 microdosing...

This Week in Startups ·

2026/09/04

This Week In Startups is made possible by: Odoo - http://Odoo.com/twist Northwest Registered Agent - https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twistdomain Rippling - http://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

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17:54

Becki DeGraw on spinouts, IP licensing & clean exits...

This Week in Startups ·

2026/09/03

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

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01:20:16

VC experts on why Physical AI funding is heating up |...

This Week in Startups ·

2026/09/02

VC experts on why Physical AI funding is heating up | E2333 This Week In Startups is made possible by: partner 1 - link partner 2 - link partner 3 - link Today's show: Are we one step closer to data centers in space? Katelin Holloway of Seven Seven Six and Paige Doherty of Behind Genius Ventures break it down what it would take. Plus investor interest is surging in Physical AI companies. Paige explains why she backs applications of physical AI over general-purpose robotics, and how her thesis on

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01:06:47

Are AI Agents forming "civilizations" or is this just...

This Week in Startups ·

2026/08/31

This Week In Startups is made possible by: Northwest Registered Agent https://northwestregisteredagent.com/twistdomain CLA https://claconnect.com/withyou Rippling https://Rippling.ai/twist Today's show: Hugging Face's $399 Microduck and the art of companies taking on side quests. Then, we get into Dwarkesh Patel's "The Rise and Fall of Agent Civilizations," which blew up online this weekend. Jason calls the "secret AI civilization" framing deliberate PR, and thinks it's inflammatory enough that

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01:48:14

Breaking down Nvidia's Hugging Face and Poolside bets...

This Week in Startups ·

2026/08/28

This Week In Startups is made possible by: DigitalOcean https://do.co/twist Every.io https://every.io PayPal https://paypal.launch.co Today's show: *Nvidia agreed to buy Hugging Face for $12.9 billion, just days after quietly licensing Poolside's coding model for $6 billion+. On TWiST, Jason lays out why this is actually the biggest AI story of the year. Nvidia plans to offer enterprises unmetered, unlimited on-prem compute, pulling them away from reliance on Anthropic and OpenAI's frontier models

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