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Today's show:

Jason's been saying it for years now (and we've got an All In clip from 2023 to prove it). Open source will win the AI race. This week gives us a major evidence point, as $11B legal AI company Harvey released its own in-house model, trained on an open-weight Kimi K3 base. Harvey made a proprietary specialized solution without having to risk sharing its precious expert-compiled data with the major frontier labs.

PLUS we're checking out the FREE AI dictation app Willow with co-founder Allan Guo, and finding out how he plans to compete with giants like Wispr Flow and Apple. AND we've got the Stanford student who built an automated golf cart and gave luminaries like Jensen Huang and Sam Altman rides around campus.

Guests

Allan Guo on X: https://x.com/_allanguo

Willow: https://willowvoice.com/

Ethan Goodhart: https://x.com/EthanGoodhart

Sign up for the Wind TestFlight: https://testflight.apple.com/join/zZqmhhwf

Relevant Links

CNBC: OpenAI "will be a public company in 2027": https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/19/open-ai-ipo-timing-2027-friar.html

OpenAI Zero Data Retention Pledge: https://openai.com/index/our-commitment-to-zero-data-retention

TWIST (June 2026): Jason comments on OpenAI and training data: https://youtu.be/o3eow1nTrcI?si=orungk7OmplOuyio&t=742

All In podcast (Feb 2023): Jason comments on open source vs. frontier models: https://youtu.be/PVgBWV2bvLs?si=j6y7sHS0wx9q09oa&t=5173

Harvey: https://www.harvey.ai/

Harvey Tenet Research Preview: https://www.harvey.ai/blog/post-training-update-harvey-tenet

Fireworks AI: https://fireworks.ai/

Wispr Flow: https://wisprflow.ai/

Pipedrive: https://www.pipedrive.com/

Nvidia Jetson Thor: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/autonomous-machines/embedded-systems/jetson-thor/

OpenAI shares Wind golf cart clip: https://www.tiktok.com/@openai/video/7645336713472134431

Starlink Mini: https://starlink.com/mini-product-us?srsltid=AfmBOorzM7arxhdzYAdDpH6RGD4LLg9WV_BFnEoLuYieuHuGSCjQTE1Y

Toro mowers: https://www.toro.com/

404 Media: https://www.404media.co/

Punchbowl News: https://punchbowl.news/

Semafor: https://www.semafor.com/

Skift: https://skift.com/

Newcomer: https://www.newcomer.co/

Deirdre Bosa on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@deebosa

Electrek: Genesis GV90 review: https://electrek.co/2026/08/20/genesis-gv90-luxury-coach-doors-images/

Toyota Alphard gallery: https://global.toyota/en/mobility/toyota-brand/gallery/alphard.html

The Clash "London Calling" video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfK-WX2pa8c

Timestamps:

0:00 What is Jason's Grok Bot up to?

5:17 Systems over goals

9:43 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

13:08 OpenAI will go public soon

14:19 Top line ARR matters way less than churn

20:43 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

29:55 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

30:52 Harvey launches Tenet

34:32 "Open source is going to win it all"

35:58 Allan Guo of Willow joins

39:18 Managing a single source of truth across a team

47:00 Lon and Jason love the Toyota Alphard

51:00 Stanford student and AV expert Ethan Goodhart joins

1:00:09 How Ethan got Jensen Huang to go for a ride

1:00:37 Punk Rock 101

1:06:24 Phoebe Gates' secret Harvard class

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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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The TWiST AI Basics series is made possible by Google Cloud!

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

Astrocade is building super-intelligence for the interactive world. Build the future of fun: https://www.astrocade.com/careers

Today's show:

*Making a video game once required a studio, an engine, and a team of five or more people working for six months. But with Astrocade, users just describe the game they'd like to play and share, and an AI assembles it from minutes, ready to publish to a TikTok-style feed.

Still, founder and CEO Amir Sadeghian tell us AI can't actually build a great game all on its own. The magic isn't just in the automation, but the user's creativity and good taste.

Amir demos how the app turns simple sentences and descriptions into full video games, explains why frontier models still regress to the mean rather than pushing boundaries, and unpacks how the game's human-in-the-loop workflow can turn even generic ideas into something original and fun.

Guest:

Amir Sadeghian on X: https://x.com/_amirabs

Astrocade: https://www.astrocade.com/

Relevant Links

Flappy Bird: https://flappybird.io/

Plants vs. Zombies: https://www.ea.com/ea-studios/popcap/plants-vs-zombies

MrBeast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MrBeast

Google's Nano Banana Pro: https://nanabananapro.com/

Timestamps:

0:00 Welcome to AI Basics, presented by Google Cloud

0:44 Amir Sadeghian, CEO of Astrocade joins

1:08 What is Astrocade and how does it work?

2:58 From describing to publishing: the TikTok for games

3:37 Amir's origin story: four continents, one vision

5:11 Why making games used to require years of training

6:46 The watermelon juice theory of product friction

7:35 Taste as the new programming language

14:18 Personalizing games with your own images

15:23 From consumer to prosumer: can you make a living?

16:22 Astrocade's creator fund and new creator economy

17:07 Open roles at Astrocade

18:10 Why play is the most universal human language

19:43 Google Cloud, Gemini, and wrapping up

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Thank you to our partners!

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

Astrocade is building super-intelligence for the interactive world. Build the future of fun: https://www.astrocade.com/careers

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:

Frontier AI models can ace PhD-level exams, but it's still bad at tracking down the product you want in the style that suits you. Onton's Zach Hudson tell us that the problem is that models are a black box.

His solution? A neurosymbolic model, Ontology 1, that learns about your taste and preferred aesthetic over time, then produces product searches tailored specifically to you, rather than just using keywords and relevant tags. How do neurosymbolic models work, and how does Onton understand your prompts and favorite design trends? And why aren't the frontier labs working on neurosymbolic models of their own? Zach joins Jason and Lon to discuss.

PLUS, following a record-smashing SpaceX IPO, Ashi Dissanayake of Spacium makes the case that the real bottleneck in space isn't launching rockets off the ground any more. It's refueling in orbit.

Guests

Zach Hudson on X: ****https://x.com/nosduhz

Onton: https://onton.com/

Spacium: https://spaceium.com/

Spacium on X: https://x.com/SpaceiumInc

Relevant Links

Poolside's journey to AGI: https://poolside.ai/vision/purpose

Startup Archive: Sam Altman on the Paul Graham advice that saved OpenAI: https://www.startuparchive.org/p/sam-altman-on-the-paul-graham-advice-that-saved-open-ai-always-make-an-api

Kelly Wearstler: https://www.kellywearstler.com/

Ennis House: https://franklloydwright.org/site/ennis-house/

Los Feliz Living: Ennis House profile: https://www.losfelizliving.com/los-feliz-historic-homes/ennis-house-los-feliz-hcm-149

Indiewire: Ennis-inspired "The Studio" offices: https://www.indiewire.com/features/craft/the-studio-production-design-interview-seth-rogen-1235114365/

Monocle Magazine: https://monocle.com/

Spaceium on Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/spaceium-inc

Orbit Fab's RAFTI: https://www.orbitfab.com/rafti/

James Webb Space Telescope: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/webb/

Houzz: https://www.houzz.com/

Timestamps: 0:00 Zach Hudson joins: What is "neurosymbolic search"

4:03 Ontology 1 isn't a black box

6:31 Who is using Onton?

9:36 Vanta - Get $1000 off your SOC 2 at https://www.vanta.com/twist

11:35 Could neurosymbolic models reach AGI?

13:19 Jason loves Wright's Ennis House

17:03 The shape of AI companies is changing

19:28 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!

22:32 UGC as a data moat

26:03 The Dead Internet Theory

28:13 Ashi Dissanayake of Spacium joins

29:52 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

31:50 Storables vs. cryogenics: the zero-boil-off breakthrough

34:11 All kinds of propulsion requires refueling

36:09 Getting more value from LEO to GEO

38:28 Moving at rocket speed

44:54 Why demand is so acute

49:37 The investing climate for space, post-SpaceX

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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:

We've been going deep on Bittensor and how it works all year on TWiST, meeting with the creators of some of our favorite subnets, and exploring how the system decentralizes inference, compute, and storage. Now, on this very special episode, Jason and Lon welcome Bittensor co-founder Jason Steeves (aka "Const") to the show.

He gives us a quick tour of the project's first principles, before diving into how subnets incentivize miners to contribute, how dTAO turned the creation of subnets into its own competition, how Const says he employs "the internal machinery of capitalism" to rank subnects, and his latest project, Subnet 120 (aka Affine).

Find out what the OpenTensor Foundation actually does, go inside the Templar controversy, and learn why Const is trying to make himself increasingly irrelevant.

Guest

Jacob Steeves on X: https://x.com/const_reborn

Bittensor: https://www.bittensor.com/

Affine: https://affine.io/

Relevant Links

Original Bittensor whitepaper: https://bittensor.com/whitepaper

Bittensor governance and documentation: https://www.bittensor.com/docs

Beginner's Guide to Dynamic TAO: https://www.tao.media/the-complete-beginners-guide-to-dynamic-tao-dtao/

Prime Intellect: TOPLOC: https://www.primeintellect.ai/blog/toploc

Engy (SN53): https://engy.ai/

Lium (SN51): https://www.lium.io

Targon (SN4): https://targon.com/

Templar (SN3): https://www.tplr.ai/

Hippius (SN75): https://hippius.com/

MakerDAO: https://makerdao.com/

Stillcore Capital: https://stillcorecapital.com/

Timestamps: 0:00 The origin of Bittensor (and the name Const)

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

13:55 From Bitcoin mining to mining intelligence

19:33 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%.

30:17 Odoo - The all-in-one business platform. Get started for free at https://Odoo.com/twist

32:37 What is a subnet?

33:35 Forcing honest inference from bad actors

37:14 Building a subnet is harder than it looks

40:42 Understanding dTAO

51:57 Where the registration TAO actually goes

1:02:57 All about the Conviction "rug pull"

1:15:19 How Const is making himself irrelevant

1:17:33 The "Buy One TAO" philosophy

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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:

*Anthropic is likely headed for the largest IPO in history. A reported 2-3 trillion October debut would blow past SpaceX's recent record. Jason breaks down why the. numbers matter less than what they'll reveal about the entire AI economy.

Then, chats with a pair of founders: one who's selling subscription water filtration systems that will keep microplastics out of your brain (and other body parts), and another who's building the AI software that powers automated solar panel installation.

Guests

Sami Khoreibi: https://x.com/samikhoreibi

Wisewell: https://www.wisewell.com/

Puneet Puri: https://x.com/puneetp

Gritt Robotics: https://www.gritt.ai/

Relevant Links

Fortune: Anthropic reportedly plans $2T IPO in October: https://fortune.com/2026/08/13/anthropic-ipo-2-trillion-october-largest-ever-spacex/

Ramp AI Index: August update: https://ramp.com/data/ai-index-august-2026

Decart: https://decart.ai/

Bloomberg: Anthropic in talks to buy Decart: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-13/anthropic-said-in-talks-to-buy-ai-startup-decart-for-6-billion

Nat Geo: Profile of water sommelier Martin Riese: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/water-sommelier-martin-riese

Mailman School of Public Health: Nanoplastics study: https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/news/bottled-water-can-contain-hundreds-thousands-nanoplastics

Bryan Johnson microplastics post: https://x.com/bryan_johnson/status/1937194358027190637?lang=en

Topo Chico: https://www.coca-cola.com/us/en/brands/topo-chico

San Pellegrino: https://www.sanpellegrino.com/

Acqua Panna: https://www.acquapanna.com/intl/

Evian: https://www.evian.com/

Mountain Valley Spring Water: https://mountainvalleyspring.com

Fiji Water: https://www.fijiwater.com/

TechCrunch: Gritt exits stealth: https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/21/gritt-exits-stealth-with-34-million-for-robots-to-build-solar-plants-then-everything-else/

Our World in Data: Solar panel prices: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-pv-prices

Our World in Data: Solar module prices vs. cumulative capacity: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-pv-prices-vs-cumulative-capacity

NYT: Do your emojis make you look old? https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/08/12/upshot/emoji-generations.html

DJI Mic 3: https://www.dji.com/mic-3

Ted Lasso S4 trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk1KdTMhFs8

Lanterns trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UIBOsuUwc4

Furious trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBSqPDxmNZs

The Shards trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zpm9HUOrZIc

Sporked: What are Tim Tams? https://sporked.com/article/what-are-tim-tams/

Timestamps:

0:00 New Segment: "Enough Already!"

3:36 Anthropic's record-breaking IPO plans

9:59 Why it's "Springtime for Trump and M&A"

10:39 PayPal - Built for payments, growth, and agentic. Paypal Open, built for all business. Visit https://paypalopen.com to get started

16:00 Sami Khoreibi of Wisewell joins

17:30 Hiring a water sommelier

20:23 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

29:00 The problems with tap and bottled water

30:34 Odoo - The all-in-one business platform. Get started for free at https://Odoo.com/twist

49:58 Puneet Puri of Gritt Robotics joins

54:35 Solar's version of "Moore's Law"

1:05:08 Are you using the Boomer emojis?

1:09:02 Why Jason loves the DJI Mic 3

1:11:36 Jason & Lon's streaming recommendations

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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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These robots could cut delivery costs by 80% | Next Unicorns

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Today's show:

*Cytronic built a robotics-first fulfillment network, packing and shipping orders for cents instead of dollars, from small, city-adjacent micro-warehouses. Alex chats with CEO and co-founder Kevin Gibbon about how he can build a fulfillment warehouse for $1.2 million, and why it costs Amazon 50M-100M.

PLUS Eyebot delivers low-cost doctor-reviewed eyeglass prescriptions following 90-second vision tests, conducted in everyday kiosks. We asked CEO and co-founder Matthias Hofmann how he's trying to simplify vision care and caught up with his Walmart and Sam's Club pilot programs.

Guests

Kevin Gibbon on X: https://x.com/kevingibbon

Cytronic: https://cytronic.ai/

Matthias Hofmann on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mchofmann/

Eyebot: https://www.eyebot.co/

Relevant Links

Axios: Cytronic seed round: ****https://www.axios.com/pro/supply-chain-deals/2026/07/15/robotic-fulfillment-cytronic-13m

Airhouse acquired by Syncware: https://www.airhouse.io/

Amazon News: 10 Years of Robotics: https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/operations/10-years-of-amazon-robotics-how-robots-help-sort-packages-move-product-and-improve-safety

Serve Robotics: https://www.serverobotics.com/

Zipline: https://www.flyzipline.com

TechCrunch: Manna plots major US expansion: https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/08/autonomous-drone-delivery-startup-manna-plots-major-u-s-expansion/

TechCrunch: Eyebot Series A round: https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/26/eyebot-gets-20m-series-a-to-boost-to-expand-eye-care-access/

CNET Eyebot coverage: https://www.cnet.com/health/medical/i-took-a-vision-test-in-90-seconds-with-a-robot-and-saw-the-future-of-vision-care/

Walmart & Sam's Club announcement: https://www.eyebot.co/resources/walmart-and-sams-club-pilot-fast-affordable-eyeglass-prescriptions-using-eyebots-technology/

Formlabs: https://formlabs.com/

Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses: https://www.meta.com/ai-glasses/

Google Android XR AI announcement: https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/platforms/android/android-xr-gemini-glasses-headsets/

World Health Organization: Blindness and vision impairment fact sheet: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/blindness-and-visual-impairment

Timestamps:

0:00 Kevin Gibbons of Cytronic joins the show

5:29 How small is a micro fulfillment center?

9:59 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.

11:33 Understanding the unit economics

20:24 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

22:29 Why fulfillment costs rise as you scale

29:46 Automatons Roll Out

30:12 Matthias Hofmann of Eyebot joins the show

30:31 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!

31:29 Vision tests vs. eye exams

42:28 The terrifying doctor shortage

47:22 Fundraising and partnerships

57:07 Will we always need human doctors in the loop?

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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

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Today's show:

*Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg published a 6,500 word essay about the future of AI, and Jason thinks it's his smartest PR move in years.

The thinkpiece, "The Future is for Everyone: The Path to a Positive AI Future," arrives alongside a new open-weight Meta model — Muse Glimmer — and the promise of an open-weight version of Muse Spark 1.2 to come. Zuckerberg's clearly pitching an "abundance" narrative, promising the American public untold benefits from AI technology — everything from a PhD-level tutor for every student to scientific breakthroughs, personal assistants, and beyond — all for the low low cost of not banning new data centers. Do our hosts think everyday voters will take this deal?

PLUS X retires its revenue sharing program, the CLARITY Act misses a key pre-recess vote, what can we do to stop widespread AI-powered community college cheating, and some of the podcasting positions for which LAUNCH is hiring.

Relevant Links

Meta: "The Future is for Everyone": https://about.fb.com/news/2026/08/the-future-is-for-everyone/

Meta: "Introducing Muse Glimmer": https://research.meta.ai/blog/introducing-muse-glimmer-open-agentic-model

MS Now: "Kevin O'Leary wants to atone for his data center sins": https://www.ms.now/news/kevin-oleary-wants-to-atone-for-his-data-center-sins

"The Social Reckoning" teaser: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM4LkaXwGuY

X: Original Content Rewards Program: https://help.x.com/en/using-x/original-content-rewards

TechCrunch: Nikita Bier steps down as X's head of product: https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/05/nikita-bier-steps-down-as-xs-head-of-product/

Congress.gov: H.R. 3633 - Digital Asset Market Clarity Act: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/3633/text

Politico: "Crypto faces a setback in the Senate": https://www.politico.com/news/2026/08/07/delays-imperil-senate-crypto-bill-01029817

NYT: "AI Agents are Taking Entire Online Courses for Cheating Students": https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/10/us/ai-cheating-online-degrees.html

Inside Higher Ed: "Brown Professor Suspects Majority of His Class Used AI to Cheat": https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty/learning-assessment/2026/07/08/brown-professor-suspects-most-his-class-used-ai-cheat

Podnews: Spotify's Skip Ahead ad skip test: https://podnews.net/article/spotify-threat-ad-skipping

Tommy Vietor X post on Spotify: https://x.com/TVietor08/status/2085073214968037428?s=20

JJ Smith SF "open drug market" video: https://x.com/war24182236/status/2086839186137710724

Timestamps:

0:00 Why Zuck thinks the future is open source

2:26 Meta's roadmap: personal assistants and beyond

9:21 Every.io - For all of your incorporation, banking, payroll, benefits, accounting, taxes or other back-office administration needs, visit https://every.io

20:22 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

27:43 How to win the data center argument

29:32 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

39:24 X intros Original Content Rewards

51:58 The CLARITY Act faces new setbacks

1:00:46 AI agents are taking students' tests for them

1:09:37 LAUNCH is hiring!

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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

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Today's show:

A hedge fund just blew up shorting SaaS stocks. In turns out, the software companies that went all in on AI are bouncing back. Figma's CEO — still riding high on strong revenue — forfeited roughly $46 million in stock awards to ease investor nerves. Twilio posted its strongest quarter in years. Airbnb's CEO credits AI as the single biggest factor in the company's incredible turnaround.

Jason and Lon break down what's separating the winners this earnings season from the companies that are falling behind.

PLUS we're chatting with Bluecore Energy CEO and founder Kofi Asante about his plan to power ports, and one day AI data centers, with small, floating nuclear reactors.

AND we're kicking off the TWiST Weight Loss Challenge! Co-host Lon and Jason's brother, Jamie, are both starting GLP-1s. We'll track their progress and follow along as they attempt to collect $15,000 EACH in prize money.

Guest

Kofi Asante on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kofiasante1/

Bluecore Energy: https://www.bluecore.energy/

Jamie Calacanis on X: https://x.com/CalacanisJamie

Relevant Links

Bloomberg: Figma CEO forfeits $46M: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-05/figma-ceo-forfeits-46-million-in-stock-after-share-decline

Twilio announces second quarter 2026 results: https://investors.twilio.com/news-releases/news-release-details/twilio-announces-second-quarter-2026-results

TechCrunch: Twilio co-founder Jeff Lawson buys The Onion: https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/26/area-man-twilio-co-founder-jeff-lawson-buys-the-onion

Chesky: Airbnb will spend a lot more on AI: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/07/chesky-airbnb-ai-earnings.html

"Unreasonable Hospitality" by Will Guidara on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Unreasonable-Hospitality-Remarkable-Giving-People/dp/0593418573

The Times: Meet the unreasonable hospitality master who inspired "The Bear": https://www.thetimes.com/magazines/the-sunday-times-magazine/article/will-guidara-hospitality-the-bear-tkgzqz33w

Port of Long Beach partnership on nuclear-powered shipping: https://gcaptain.com/port-of-long-beach-marad-launch-first-u-s-partnership-on-nuclear-powered-shipping/

Reuters: ByteDance targets mega AI model: https://www.reuters.com/technology/bytedance-targets-mega-ai-model-nearing-anthropics-mythos-ft-reports-2026-08-07/

Axios: OpenAI says its AI agents breached its own systems before Hugging Face: https://www.axios.com/2026/08/06/openai-hugging-face-black-hat

Frank Lloyd Wright's Ennis House: https://franklloydwright.org/site/ennis-house/

Dwell: Why "The Studio" built a faux Frank Lloyd Wright HQ: https://www.dwell.com/article/the-studio-apple-tv-filming-locations-production-design-frank-lloyd-wright-john-lautner-97c68081

"Predators" documentary trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibVZkvpAJjI

A24 "Primetime" trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fHXyqQOKL8

Alex Honnold free solos Taipei 101: https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/25/sport/alex-honnold-taipei-101-free-solo-netflix-intl-hnk

Harmonic.ai: https://harmonic.ai/

Ro.co: http://ro.co/twist

Timestamps:

0:00 Figma, Twilio & Airbnb earnings: who's winning at AI?

9:50 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%.

11:32 The real cost of stock-based compensation

17:38 Kofi Asante of Blue Core Energy joins the show

19:47 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

20:51 What is a small modular reactor (SMR)?

26:00 Floating nuclear reactors for ports and data centers

29:47 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 Nuclear waste, submarine risks, and public perception

42:41 The generational shift in how we think about nuclear

48:19 ByteDance is training a 10 trillion parameter model

53:47 When AI models plan heists: the Hugging Face caper

58:02 Jason's Roko weight loss competition

1:11:38 Off duty: To Catch a Predator, Alex Honnold, and comedy

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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:

*Airtable just sold for $2.25 billion, an 81% drop from its peak of $11.7 billion. On this week's TWiST VC Roundtable, Aditya Agarwal (South Park Commons), Niko Bonatsos (Verdict Capital), and Rick Heitzmann (FirstMark Capital) break down why the venture world sees this as a good outcome, not a financial disaster.

By declining the deal, would Airtable's team have just been delaying the inevitable? Is the fact that they reached $400M+ ARR on its own a reason to celebrate? Find out why our investor panel prefers unwinding a stuck situation rather than chasing a growth rate that's no longer sustainable.

PLUS Robinhood's booming prediction market business, the secondary market flap over Anduril shares, why so many VCs shy away from "vice" categories, and a glimpse at how insiders are talking about the Apple-OpenAI lawsuit.

Guests

Aditya Agarwal on X: https://x.com/adityaag

South Park Commons: https://www.southparkcommons.com/apply

Niko Bonatsos on X: https://x.com/bonatsos

Verdict Capital: https://verdictcap.com/

Rick Heitzmann on X: https://x.com/rick

FirstMark Capital: https://firstmark.com/

Relevant Links

Airtable: https://www.airtable.com/

Bending Spoons announces Airtable acquisition: https://investors.bendingspoons.com/newsroom/bending-spoons-agrees-to-acquire-airtable

Constellation Software: The Anti-Conglomerate: https://www.eaglepointcap.com/blog/constellation-software-the-anti-conglomerate

Introducing Robinhood Ventures Fund II: https://robinhood.com/us/en/newsroom/introducing-rvii/

Quartz: Robinhood posted record quarterly revenue: https://qz.com/robinhood-record-revenue-prediction-markets-earnings-073026

Riot Games: https://www.riotgames.com/en

AngelList's USVC Fund: https://usvc.com/

Baseten: https://www.baseten.co/

OpenEvidence: https://www.openevidence.com/

Hermes Agent: https://hermes-agent.org/

Granola: https://www.granola.ai/

Timestamps:

0:00 VC intros & Bending Spoons buys Airtable

9:19 Why growth is the only metric that matters

9:45 Vanta - Get $1000 off your SOC 2 at https://www.vanta.com/twist

20:52 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!

26:25 When should VCs sell in secondary markets?

30:55 Odoo - The all-in-one business platform. Get started for free at https://Odoo.com/twist

35:38 Robinhood's prediction markets are exploding

43:13 The USVC-Anduril secondary controversy

46:18 How VC firms use open source models

58:43 Telling the real founders from the grifters

1:02:38 Why Apple is suing OpenAI

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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:

*Before Bespoke's "travel concierge" chatbot could actually hold a conversation, founder/CEO Akemi Tsunagawa and her team quietly answered customers themselves. That "fake it till you make it" strategy paid off. Bespoke landed Narita Airport as a customer based on the strength of their "chatbot" answers, and now the team runs three companies, and is expanding into shipyard robots.

In the fourth and final edition of TWiST Tokyo for Summer '26, Jason and Akemi discuss her thesis: "solve the labor gap first, [then] build the tech to math." Plus insights into Japan's tourism boom, how founders should consider the country's accelerating population decline, the economics and politics of importing foreign labor, and why AI may already be taking over more jobs than you think.

Guest

Akemi Tsunagawa on X: https://x.com/AkemiTsunagawa

Bespoke: https://www.be-spoke.io/

Bebot: https://www.bebot.io

BeTrained: https://www.be-spoke.io/en/be-trained

Relevant Links

Disrupting Japan: "Silicon Valley Has Chatbots All Wrong": https://www.disruptingjapan.com/silicon-valley-has-chatbots-all-wrong-heres-how-they-really-make-money/

CNN on Japan's population decline: https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/07/asia/japan-biggest-population-decline-record-intl-hnk

Paul Graham: "Do Things That Don't Scale": https://www.paulgraham.com/ds.html

Wispr Flow: https://wisprflow.ai/

TripAdvisor: https://www.tripadvisor.com/

KPMG on Japan's Business Manage Visa Reforms: https://kpmg.com/xx/en/our-insights/gms-flash-alert/flash-alert-2025-195.html

Business Traveller on the "Akiya" renovation trend: https://www.businesstraveller.com/insights/features/japan-akiya-boom-buying-abandoned-homes/

THR on the 2004 satirical film "A Day Without a Mexican": https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/a-day-without-a-mexican-20-years-later-1236293209/

Founder University x Japan: https://tokyo.founder.university/

JETRO: https://www.jetro.go.jp/en/

Antler in Japan: https://www.antler.co/location/japan

Timestamps:

0:00 Founder U Japan Cohort 3: Coming in Jan 2027!

1:06 Introducing Akemi Tsunagawa, founder of Bespoke

3:08 Why investors passed in 2015

4:49 Selling Narita Airport on Bebot

6:29 The roots of Japan's tourism explosion

9:27 Odoo - The all-in-one business platform. Get started for free at https://Odoo.com/twist

14:17 Japan's population decline, by the numbers

20:06 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

21:38 Training foreign workers via smart glasses

27:50 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

33:06 Moving into shipyard robotics, too?

37:44 Some customer development lessons

48:21 Plans for even more expansion

52:52 Q&A: How AI changed hiring

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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:

AI models can solve PhD-level math equations and code an app in minutes… So why does everything they design look like identical slop? Thais Castello Branco, founder of Taste Labs, raised $18.5M in seed funding to teach frontier models about aesthetics and outputting quality content. She talks to Jason and Lon about why even frontier models regress to the mean on subjective tasks, how paid "TasteMakers" can improve output quality, and whether AI accelerates or destroys the half-life of "what's cool."

PLUS Leopold Aschenbrenner's AI hedge fund liquidated its public stock portfolio, but it may be too soon to count this 25-year-old completely out. Google Earth adds AI generation and turns into a misinformation factory. LinkedIn and Substack join the AI slop crackdown. And why does every venture capitalist seem to have an opinion about the Ceuta border crisis?

Guest

Thais Castello Branco on X: https://x.com/thaiscbranco_

Taste Labs: https://tastelabs.com/

Amplify Partners: "Kill the Slop": https://www.amplifypartners.com/blog-posts/kill-the-slop-announcing-our-investment-in-taste

Relevant Links

Leopold Aschenbrenner's essay "Situational Awareness": https://situational-awareness.ai/

CNBC on SA fund collapse: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/31/leopold-aschenbrenner-situational-awareness-fund-fire-sale.html

Henk van Ess thread on Google Earth + Nano Banana: https://x.com/henkvaness/status/2082912544394498228

Substack CEO Chris Best: "Against Claudefishing": https://post.substack.com/p/against-claudefishing

NPR on the Ceuta crisis: https://www.npr.org/2026/07/31/g-s1-136507/morocco-spain-migration

Ethan Goodhart's self-driving golf cart post: https://x.com/EthanGoodhart/status/2082136189998682598?s=20

"Wind" app on TestFlight: https://testflight.apple.com/join/zZqmhhwf

TechCrunch: "Gritt exits stealth": https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/21/gritt-exits-stealth-with-34-million-for-robots-to-build-solar-plants-then-everything-else/

CA Gov: Project Nexus solar-covered canal announcement: https://www.gov.ca.gov/2026/04/29/governor-newsom-announces-the-completion-of-first-of-its-kind-solar-covered-canal-in-the-central-valley-piloting-a-new-way-to-save-water-and-reduce-costs/

Molly Wood's "Everybody in the Pool" podcast: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/

Timestamps:

0:00 Coming up on today's show…

1:23 Thais Castello Branco on teaching models to have good taste

10:45 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

15:19 The "TasteMaker" community of paid human curators

20:37 MongoDB - AI-assisted and agentic coding is helping you build faster than ever. Start building at https://MongoDB.com/ai

24:40 Jason's personal "cool hunter" prompt

30:16 Odoo - The all-in-one business platform. Get started for free at https://Odoo.com/twist

37:36 Situation Awareness lacked situational awareness

46:59 Claude models hacked three external organizations

50:54 Google Earth adds Nano Banana for some reason

54:24 The AI Slop crackdown spreads

57:54 Too many opinions about the Ceuta migrant crisis

1:04:05 Self-driving golf carts and also cars

1:09:53 Robot arms are installing solar panels

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

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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

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