This Week in Startups

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Today’s show:
TAO, the token associated with the Bittensor network, fell sharply last night after a major project declared it was taking its business elsewhere. Covenant AI had used Bittensor subnets 3, 39, and 89 before its abrupt and controversial decision to depart for other digital shores.
Gareth Howells, a co-founder of Vidaio (Bittensor Subnet 85), joined Jason and Alex to share the community perspective regarding Covenant’s decision to leave Bittensor, a choice that was especially bitter given that its recently-released Covenant-72B model trained using the network’s decentralized capabilities was hailed at the time as a demonstration of the crypto-AI hybrid’s potential. (Covenant’s Sam Dare was a recent guest on TWiST.)
Howells walked us through Vidaio’s product (AI models for high-quality video work, like upscaling)
Then it was time to bring new fan-favorite Ole Lehmann on. Ole took an Andrej Karpathy concept, and turned it into a skill that you can use in either OpenClaw or Claude Cowork.

Guests
Ole Lehmann: https://x.com/itsolelehmann
The AI Solopreneur newsletter: https://aisolo.beehiiv.com/
Vidaio: https://vidaio.io/
Vidaio on X: https://x.com/vidaio_

Timestamps:
0:00 Drama in the Bittensor space! Was there a rugpull?
1:01 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!
1:47 Gareth Howells of subnet85 joins the show: https://x.com/GarethHowells
9:56 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
11:37 Gareth reacts to the Covenant situation… Did Sam sell tokens?
14:33 How VidAIo (subnet85) optimizes video as cheaply as possible. https://vidaio.io/
20:06 Squarespace - Use offer code TWIST to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain at https://squarespace.com/TWIST
21:12 Demo: Gareth shows upscaled footage of our very own Lon Harris
27:09 Who is actually doing the computing on Bittensor?
28:15 How Bittensor recruits tech talent from emerging markets
29:42 Pilot - Visit https://pilot.com/TWIST and get $1,200 off your first year.
30:58 Jason's explains the Bittensor network. https://docs.bittensor.com/
37:28 Jason addresses "pump and dump" allegations
40:46 Ole Lehmann joins the show https://x.com/itsolelehmann
45:31 Jason's $1,000 "bounty" for enhanced show notes
49:35 Check out Ole's newsletter at aisolo.beehiiv.com !
59:50 CrowdHealth - CrowdHealth lets you ditch the bureaucracy with a peer-to-peer funding platform for your healthcare. Get started for $99 per month for your first three months by using the code TWIST at https://JoinCrowdHealth.com/twist.
1:00:46 Off Duty with Alex and J-Cal!
1:04:46 Reacting to the Maul trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkVepshZhGc

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Anthropic just built a model so dangerous, they’re not even going to release it (for now). On TWiST, Jason, Alex, and Neurometric CEO Rob May discuss whether or not this is just another frontier model or a potential weapon of mass internet destruction.
Claude Mythos Preview is already in the hands of over 40 Anthropic partners — including Nvidia, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google — as part of its “Project Glasswing” security council.
Together, they’ll test how quickly and easily the model can thwart today’s most elite cybersecurity protocols, and try to develop fresh protocols to keep our most sensitive and critical software systems safe and intact. Once Mythos or a similarly powerful model hits the streets… it’s all over!
Plus, we’re checking out the real-time SaaSpocalypse monitor Death By Clawd, and chatting with its creator, Gyani, about how it feels to have your startup one-shotted by Anthropic’s latest model.
Guests
Rob May: https://x.com/robmay
Neurometric: https://www.neurometric.ai/
Neurometric SLM Marketplace: https://marketplace.neurometric.ai/
Death by Clawd: https://deathbyclawd.com/
Nick O’Neill: https://x.com/chooserich

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Today’s show:

Timestamps:
0:00 Anthropic's new, powerful 'Mythos' model
3:50 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!
5:26 Neurometric's Rob May joins the show
10:04 Sam Altman's talent exodus
10:50 Render - Go to https://render.com/twist to apply for the Render Startup Program. You'll get anywhere from $500 to $100,000 in free credits.
11:50 Has Anthropic Passed OpenAI?
15:44 When will Claude release Mythos? Polymarket: https://polymarket.com/event/claude-mythos-released-by
18:32 The AI race turns existential
19:16 Would Anthropic's model give the CIA the ability to hack a foreign government?
20:04 Grasshopper Bank - Time is money. Don't waste either. Go to https://grasshopper.bank/twist and get an exclusive $500 cash bonus just for opening an account.
21:19 Should AI be nationalized?
29:43 Subsidizing secret AI development.
30:15 LinkedIn Jobs - Hire right, the first time. Post your first job and get $100 off towards your job post at https://LinkedIn.com/twist
31:29 How much of the military's $1.5T will go to AI cybersecurity?
35:17 Nick O'Neill's "not sponsored" call-in.
38:24 What is an SLM?
42:01 Tactical/Practical: How can you tune SLMs
45:43 How Neurometric can afford 100M free tokens per month for its users?
49:04 What is "harness engineering"?
50:58 Tactical/ Practical: Every Reddit rant is a startup idea
1:00:25 Why Meta is the most un-innovative AI company in the world.
1:03:43 Gyani of Deathbclawd joins the show — Is your company COOKED?

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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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Anthropic just pulled the plug on Claude subscriptions for OpenClaw and every third party agentic tool. So Jason and Lon welcome back three of our top TWiST OpenClaw experts to break down what it means, how much it’s going to cost now, and whether this is truly the end of the subsidized AI era.
And they all brought demos! We’re checking out ClawChief from Ryan Carson, Alex Finn’s agent Henry, and Yazin Alirhayim’s Sidecast protocol, inspired by a special request from JCal!
Hosts
Jason Calacanis: http://x.com/jason
Lon Harris: https://x.com/lons
Guests
Ryan Carson: https://x.com/ryancarson
Clawchief: https://github.com/snarktank/clawchief
Alex Finn: https://x.com/AlexFinn
Creator Buddy: https://www.creatorbuddy.io/
Yazin Alirhayim: https://x.com/yazins
OpenOats / Sidecast: https://github.com/yazinsai/OpenOats
Further Reading
The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande: https://www.amazon.com/Checklist-Manifesto-How-Things-Right/dp/0312430000
Marc Andreessen on AI job loss: https://x.com/pmarca/status/2040919227641856307
OpenAI acquires TBPN: https://openai.com/index/openai-acquires-tbpn/
This Week In Startups is made possible by:
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Today’s show:
Timestamps:

0:00 Welcome back to TWiST
0:32 Jason's thinks Andor is as good as Empire Strikes Back…
2:30 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!
3:26 Check out the checklist manifesto! https://www.amazon.com/Checklist-Manifesto-How-Things-Right/dp/0312430000
6:36 Our guests Ryan Carson, Alex Finn, and Yazin Alirhayim, and join the show
10:28 Gusto - Check out the online payroll and benefits experts with software built specifically for small businesses and startups. Try Gusto today and get three months FREE at https://Gusto.com/twist.
10:46 People are automating their coworkers and getting them fired…
18:32 Anthropic Bans OpenClaw
20:06 Vanta - Get $1000 off your SOC 2 at https://www.vanta.com/twist
24:06 How "caveman talk" makes AI works better
27:31 Alex thinks $2000/ month subscription plans are inevitable for AI.
29:31 Why is nobody using the leaked Anthropic Model?
30:30 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
32:37 Open models have been 6 months behind for the past few years
35:53 Why did OpenAI acquire TBPN?
42:01 Tactical/ Practical: The product itself is the most important thing
44:31 Demo or Die! Yazin is back to show off OpenOats
55:05 Ryan's "Claw Chief" https://github.com/snarktank/clawchief/blob/main/skills/executive-assistant/SKILL.md?plain=1
1:02:14 Alex's big announcement, "Henry intelligent machines"
1:12:33 Alex Finn DESTROYS Higgsfield's marketing strategy
1:15:35 Throwback to "Pay Per Post"
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Follow Lon:
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LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelm
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
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An AI “holding company” rebuilt dozens of YC Winter ‘26 startups in one weekend. Now we’re bringing the founder responsible into Jason’s Courtroom to defend himself.
PLUS a live demo of Boardy, the AI that acts like a virtual board member and makes crucial introductions. Find out why he gets to have so much agency, how creator Andrew D’Souza used him to raise his own $17 million round, and how this company ever plans to actually make money.
Plus Jason celebrates Apple’s 50th anniversary with a fiery rant about milking the ghost of Steve Jobs… Why OpenAI is acquiring a tech podcast… Jason’s favorite weighted vest for rucking… AND Lon’s Off Duty weekend streaming picks.
Guests
Marik Hazan:⁠ https://x.com/MarikHazan⁠
Feltsense:⁠ https://feltsense.com/⁠
Andrew D’Souza:⁠ https://x.com/andrewdsouza⁠
Boardy:⁠ https://www.boardy.ai/⁠

Timestamps:

0:00 Jason's direction for TWiST and thoughts on legacy media
5:14 Marik of Feltsense joins the show
6:10 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!
7:10 Marik's viral YC replicator stunt
9:45 Deel - Founders scale faster on Deel. Set up payroll for any country in minutes, hire anyone anywhere, get visas handled fast, and get back to building. Visit https://deel.com/twist to learn more.
20:39 Grasshopper bank - Time is money. Don't waste either. Go to https://grasshopper.bank/twist and get an exclusive $500 cash bonus just for opening an account.
21:33 Feltsense founder goes on trial!
25:26 Jason dunks on Bank of America's app
27:59 TBPN acquired by OpenAI
29:28 The All In Podcast is worth $1B!
30:13 Render - Find out why 5 million developers are already using the all-in-one cloud platform, Render. Go to https://render.com/twist and apply for the Render Startup Program to get $500-$100,000 in free credits, depending on your stage and backers.
33:02 Andrew D'Souza joins the show along with his agent, Boardy!
43:17 So how does Boardy make money?
48:32 Lon is becoming more and more "AI-pilled."
50:41 Tactical/ practical: "If we have data, let's look at data. If all we have are opinions, let's go with mine." -Jim Barskdale, former CEO of Netscape
1:01:00 Tactical/ practical: hire a PR firm to report on your competitors' wrongdoings.
1:02:58 Jason calls out Apple for being DISGRAZIAD!
1:15:09 Lon's TV pick of the week: "Something Very Bad is Going to Happen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMc_pWm7G7o
1:19:52 Become an Angel Investor at https://thesyndicate.com/

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Follow Lon:
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LinkedIn:⁠ https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis⁠
Check out all our partner offers:⁠ https://partners.launch.co/⁠
Great TWIST interviews:⁠ Will Guidara,⁠⁠ Eoghan McCabe⁠,⁠ Steve Huffman⁠,⁠ Brian Chesky⁠,⁠ Bob Moesta,⁠⁠ Aaron Levie⁠,⁠ Sophia Amoruso⁠,⁠ Reid Hoffman⁠,⁠ Frank Slootman⁠,⁠ Billy McFarland⁠
Check out Jason’s suite of newsletters:⁠ https://substack.com/@calacanis⁠
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This Week in AI, JCal sits down with three CEOs building the infrastructure, intelligence, and interfaces for the next era of AI: Jeremy Fraenkel (CEO, Fundamental), Victor Riparbelli (CEO, Synthesia), and Nick Harris (CEO, Lightmatter). We break down what's actually happening beneath the AI hype: the data modality LLMs completely missed, why copper is the real bottleneck in AI data centers, OpenAI shutting down Sora, the build vs. buy debate for AI tools, and how close we really are to AGI.
AI's Biggest Blind Spot, Tabular Data: LLMs transformed text, images, and code, but 70-80% of enterprise data lives in rows and columns.
Copper Can't Keep Up: Nick explains why AI data centers are hitting a wall. GPUs compute faster than they can communicate. Lightmatter's photonic chips push 1.6 terabits per fiber and can 3x training speed.
Why OpenAI Killed Sora & Anthropic's Focus is Winning: Victor breaks down why even OpenAI had to learn the lesson of focus, and why Claude Code has every founder talking.
Vibe Coding Your Own CRM vs. Buying Salesforce: Jeremy reveals Fundamental built their own internal CRM using vibe coding. The panel debates when building beats buying and when it's a distraction.
The Omnipresent CEO: Jason shares how he's using AI agents for root access to Slack, Gmail, and Notion, resurrecting former employees as AI personas, automating SDR workflows, and summarizing employee inboxes while they're on vacation.
Are We Already at AGI?: Nick says the rate of progress is a double exponential. Jeremy argues AGI is a moving goalpost. Victor warns of "Future Shock" and societal disruption.
🔗 Learn more about Fundamental: https://fundamental.tech🔗 Learn more about Synthesia: https://www.synthesia.io🔗 Learn more about Lightmatter: https://lightmatter.coThis Week In AI is made possible by:PayPal Open - One Platform for all Business: paypalopen.comTimestamps:00:00 Welcome & intro to Jeremy Fraenkel, Victor Riparbelli, and Nick Harris01:47 What is Fundamental? Large tabular models explained07:01 Victor Riparbelli on Synthesia & why OpenAI killed Sora11:09 Claude Code dominance & the Lightspeed founder retreat12:08 Nick Harris on Lightmatter, photonics & the new Moore's Law14:38 Copper vs. fiber: why AI data centers are hitting a wall18:44 Reinventing video: interactive, real-time, personalized21:32 The economics of a custom AI movie23:55 Why Amazon, Google & Meta are building their own chips28:06 Tables have a bandwidth problem too32:27 When will compute be as cheap as storage?36:10 The future of software: every company gets a custom stack38:06 Vibe coding your own CRM vs. buying Salesforce45:57 Jason's quest for root access to Slack50:18 The omnipresent CEO: Doctor Manhattan meets Jesus CEO52:13 Resurrecting former employees as AI personas53:25 Victor's executive changelog for a 650-person company55:07 Whisper Flow & the Plaud Pin1:00:03 AGI: is it already here?1:03:37 Jeremy: we've only solved half the brain1:06:30 70% of Americans fear AI will impact jobs1:08:47 Future Shock & keeping the rope tight*Mentioned in the show:*
Wisper Flow: https://wisperflow.ai
Plaud Pin: https://www.plaud.ai
Athena Executive Assistants: https://www.athenawow.com
WHOOP: https://www.whoop.com
"Future Shock" by Alvin Toffler: https://www.amazon.com/Future-ShockAlvin-Toffler/dp/0394425863
Victor on TWiST, E1776: https://youtu.be/jxET4fq_2eA
Nick on TWiST, E1787: https://youtu.be/FPW2nnEqfMsSubscribe to This Week in AI on Apple: https://thisweekinai.ai/spotifySubscribe to This Week in AI on Spotify: https://thisweekinai.ai/appleThanks for watching!🤖 If you want to stay ahead of the curve on all things AI, make sure to join our community across all platforms:📩 Get the Weekly Newsletter: https://thisweekinai.ai/📺 Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ThisWeekinAIPodcast📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinaipodcast