This Week in Startups
Jason Calacanis covers startups, tech, markets, media, and all the hottest topics in business and technology. He also interviews the world’s greatest founders, operators, investors, and innovators.
Latest Episodes
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Today’s show:
Jason breaks down the real math behind raising a seed round. Here’s the funnel: contact 150 firms, get 50 first meetings, convert 2o into second meetings, and close 2 term sheets.
PLUS Jason responds to viewer questions about why hardware is no longer a dirty word for investors, how to differentiate your startup from frontier-model companies like OpenAI, even when they’re in your niche. Plus a pitch for “Founder Community College,” and anecdotes from Lon’s European odyssey.
Thanks for the Questions:
Richard Corral: CEO of Quanto: https://quanto.co/
ØnProtons on X: https://x.com/0nProtons
SergeDawg on X: https://x.com/sergedawg
Mahika Golani
Peridot: https://www.tryperidot.com/
Shawn Sully on X: https://x.com/aroogle
Programs and Accelerators Mentioned:
Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com/
Techstars: https://www.techstars.com/
Antler: https://www.antler.co/
PearX: https://pear.vc/pearx/
Sequoia ARC: https://www.sequoiacap.com/arc/
Kauffman Fellows: https://www.kauffmanfellows.org/
Companies and Startups Referenced:
Whoop: https://www.whoop.com/
Knightscope: https://knightscope.com/
Eight Sleep: https://www.eightsleep.com/
Cafe X: https://www.cafexapp.com/
Media Referenced:
This Week In Startups is made possible by:
Render - render.com/twist
Deel - deel.com/twist
Northwest Registered Agent - northwestregisteredagent.com/twist
Today’s show:
The "Ryanair of drone delivery" just raised $50 million and plans to bring its technology from Europe to the United States. Manna founder Bobby Healy explains to TWiST how his Dublin-based company completed 300,000 deliveries while some rivals are still publishing blog posts, and why low-cost airline economics will decide who wins the autonomous skies.
Sticking to the drone theme, TWiST welcomed Theseus co-founder Ian Laffey, who called in from Kyiv to tell us about his company’s drone guidance system. It runs off a simple camera and Google Maps. The technology could rewrite the modern, GPS-jammed battlefield, and bring more firepower to smaller nations fending off larger foes.
Guest Links:
Manna https://www.manna.aero
Bobby Healy https://www.linkedin.com/in/bhealy/
Manna funding announcement https://www.manna.aero/blog/series-b
Theseus https://www.theseus.us/
Ian Laffey https://www.linkedin.com/in/ilaffey2/
Most recent Theseus funding announcement https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/17/defense-tech-theseus-landed-y-combinator-the-us-special-forces-and-4-3m-from-a-tweet/
The tweet that kickstarted Theseus: https://x.com/ilaffey2/status/1759353732075294766
Timestamps:
0:00 Bobby Healy of Manna joins TWiST
1:41 How a Manna base works: drones migrate around the city like Waymos
7:18 Battle-hardened in Irish weather: 97% uptime in wind and rain
8:52 Margin-positive economics & the path to $0.20 per delivery
9:25 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
12:32 $50M Series B vs competitors raising $600–800M
19:51 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.
22:53 The peer-to-peer drone future and hyper-local commerce
25:46 Growing from 170 to 570
This Week In Startups is made possible by:
Every.io https://every.io
Shopify https://shopify.com/twist
Render https://render.com/twist
Plaud https://Plaud.ai/twist
Today’s show:
Startups like Divergent Technologies are producing components and aircraft for the military through new systems that are better, faster, and cheaper than conventional methods. CEO and co-founder Lukas Czinger stops by TWiST to share the company’s vertically integrated, AI-driven manufacturing platform and how he transitioned from hypercar parts to working directly with the Pentagon on autonomous aircraft.
Plus, 50 million Americans are on antidepressants, and it’s not necessarily the right treatment for all of them. Outro Health co-founders Brandon Goode and Dr. Mark Horowitz share their hyperbolic tapering method, which helps patients get off drugs like Zoloft and Prozac without suffering through traumatic and potentially dangerous side effects.
Guests
Lukas Czinger: https://x.com/lukasczinger
Divergent Technologies: https://www.divergent3d.com
Czinger Vehicles: https://www.czinger.com/
Brandon Goode: https://www.linkedin.com/in/goodebrandon/
Dr. Mark Horowitz: https://x.com/markhoro
Outro Health: https://outro.com
Timestamps:
0:00 Divergent shifted from hypercar development to 3D printing all kinds of components
1:33 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!
4:10 How 3D printing has exponentially improved
8:18 Making military components faster, better, and cheaper
9:58 Every.io - For all of your incorporation, banking, payroll, benefits, accounting, taxes or other back-office administration needs, visit https://every.io
11:00 How Divergent caught the Pentagon's attention
19:51 Shopify - Turn those What Ifs into sales with the ecommerce platform powering millions of businesses. Sign up for your $1-per-month trial today at https://shopify.com/twist
25:29 Why Outro Health helps patients taper off SSRIs
30:06 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
This Week In Startups is made possible by:
Grasshopper Bank - https://grasshopper.bank/twist
LinkedIn - https://linkedIn.com/twist
Northwest Registered Agent - https://northwestregisteredagent.com/twistPlaud - https://Plaud.ai/twist
Why raise $200 million if you are already profitable? That’s the question Jason and Alex put to Mercury’s founder and CEO, Immad Akhund, after the entrepreneur raised another massive round for his upstart, technology-friendly bank. TWiST then welcomed Kled founder Avi Patel to discuss the startup he considers a clear ripoff of his own company. Jason gavels in verdicts on all parties involved, including Y Combinator and venture capital firm General Catalyst. The show closes with a news lightning round, including OpenAI’s decision to offer $2 million in token credits to hundreds of startups.
Guest Links:
Mercury https://mercury.com
Mercury funding announcement https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260520511817/en/Mercury-Raises-$200-Million-Series-D-at-$5.2B-Valuation
Immad Akhund on X https://x.com/immad
Kled https://www.kled.ai/
Avi Patel on X https://x.com/avipat_/
Avi’s complaint https://x.com/avipat_/status/2055384102409253056
General Catalyst https://www.generalcatalyst.com/
Y Combinator https://www.ycombinator.com/
Discussion links:
This Week In Startups is made possible by:
Vanta - Vanta.com/TWIST
Sentry - Sentry.io/TWIST
Deel - Deel.com/TWIST
Today’s show:
AI is the villain of the 2026 commencement cycle, with business luminaries — including Eric Schmidt — booed for discussing or praising the technology. As students graduate into a job market forcibly reshaped by AI, increasingly negative public polling on the potential impacts of artificial intelligence on society is clearly not missing the mark.
Jason and Alex then discussed The Information’s reporting that Anthropic and OpenAI earn nearly 90% of all startup AI revenue, a Stanford student’s viral essay regarding their time at the university in a post-ChatGPT world, Flock Safety’s impressive (and worrying) web of cameras, and the upcoming Mark II AI bookmark. The episode closes with questions from our live audience!
TWIST Links:
Bounty website https://www.thisweekinstartups.com/bounty
Sidebar bounty challenge https://www.notion.so/launch1/5K-Bounty-Create-Sidebar-App-for-Podcasts-34150ff313d280adbd8ed6204676513c
Annotated.com bounty challenge https://annotated.lovable.app/
Timestamps:
0:00 TWiST All-Stars summer lineup announcement
2:43 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!
5:08 Eric Schmidt booed at University of Arizona commencement
8:57 Why Gen Z feels "double-crossed" by AI leaders
10:10 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.
15:22 Is this AI's Vietnam moment? The anti-war parallel
18:04 Theo Baker's NYT essay on Stanford's AI cheating culture
19:24 Sentry - New users can get $240 in free credits when they go to https://sentry.io/twist and use the code TWIST
22:30 Why Jason says everyone should start a company
28:59 Anthropic + OpenAI capture 89% of AI
This Week In Startups is made possible by:
IM8 Health: IM8health.com/TWIST
Squarespace: Squarespace.com/TWIST
Render - Render.com/TWIST
Self-driving just stopped being a science problem and became an engineering challenge instead. That's the through-line of today’s double-header with the CEOs of two of the most important AV companies in the world — Wayve's Alex Kendall and Waabi's Raquel Urtasun. Between them: ~$2B raised in the last six months, Uber as a partner, Nissan and Volvo as OEMs, and a shared bet that end-to-end AI plus world models beats Waymo's city-by-city map-and-pray approach.
If you want to understand the state of the self-driving industry beyond recent Waymo announcements, this is the episode for you.
Guest Links:
Wayve: wayve.ai/
Waabi: http://waabi.ai/
Alex Kendall https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexgkendall/
Raquel Uratsun: https://www.linkedin.com/in/raquel-urtasun-298400139/
Company Links:
Wayve’s GAIA-2 world model: https://wayve.ai/thinking/gaia-2/
Wayve’s 500 city roadshow: https://wayve.ai/thinking/ai-500-roadshow-500-cities/
Wavye’s most recent funding round: https://wayve.ai/press/series-d/
Waybe + Uber: https://wayve.ai/press/wayve-nissan-uber-robotaxi-collaboration/
Waabi closed-loop simulator: https://waabi.ai/insights/waabi-world
This Week In Startups is made possible by:Pilot - https://Pilot.com/TWISTGrasshopper Bank - https://Grasshopper.bank/TWISTQuo - https://Quo.com/TWiSTPlaud - https://Plaud.ai/twistAnthropic just declared every unauthorized secondary sale of its stock "void" — naming Hiive, Forge, Sydecar, Upmarket, and others in a public hit list. Jason and Alex sit down with Jenny Fielding (Everywhere Ventures), Dave McClure (Practical VC), and Sam Lessin (Slow Ventures) to unpack what the AI lab’s move to limit secondary trades means for SPV operators, brokers, and the founders trying to keep control of their cap tables. Plus: a real story of a founder who returned a $15M Series A six months after closing because Claude was going to eat his startup, SaaS moats, and just what does it mean to be rich?Timestamps:0:00 Guest introductions0:48 Anthropic voids unauthorized SPV trades8:41 Accredited investor reform & the SEC sophisticated investor test8:58 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/TWiST11:43 Naval's USVC closed-end fund as a workaround16:41 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!17:48 Pro-rata rights battles: when Series A investors push seed investors out19:36 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.29:13 Pilot: Focus on your product, let Pilot handle your bookkeeping. Pilot provides the most reliable accounting, CFO, and tax services for startups and small businesses. Head to https://pilot.com/twist and get $1,200 off your first year.30:23 Storing wealth in stories vs. cash flows34:19 Cerebras and Fervo Energy IPOs — meaningful liquidity?37:54 Will SpaceX, Anthropic, OpenAI IPOs redistribute capital or compound it?45:58 The $15M Series A founder who returned the money because of Claude50:01 Should founders pivot or return capital when the world changes?56:43 OpenAI's $6.6B tender and Shruti Gandhi's viral SF cost-of-living tweet1:00:25 Intercom rebrands to Fin: the AI-first late-stage pivotSubscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.comCheck out the TWIST500: https://www.twist500.comSubscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcpFollow Lon:X: https://x.com/lonsFollow Alex:X: https://x.com/alexLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelmFollow Jason:X: https://twitter.com/JasonLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanisCheck 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 McFarlandCheck out Jason’s suite of newslett
The future of AI isn't a smarter chatbot. It's a model that watches your screen, listens to the room, and acts on what it sees. We dug into Thinking Machines' new interaction model, what it means for compute, and the layoff wave that's already here.This week's roundtable: Anastasios Angelopoulos (CEO of Arena, formerly LMArena), Nick Harris (CEO of Lightmatter, photonic computing chips), and Philip Johnston (CEO of StarCloud, building megawatt data centers in space).
Thank you to our exclusive sponsor:
PayPal Open, One Platform for All Business: http://paypalopen.com/
Timestamps:
0:00 Cold open
1:21 Welcome to Episode 13
2:51 Is China closing the AI gap? Arena's data
5:16 Lightmatter and the photonic interconnect bottleneck
9:42 StarCloud 2, Nvidia Space Ruben 1, and orbital data centers
17:24 Thinking Machines' interaction model: what's actually new
28:22 Whisper Flow and the 3-pedal desk setup
33:48 Real-time desktop and camera awareness as the real unlock
40:25 Why this 100x's compute demand
42:43 The polarization of compute and $10M personal data centers
49:25 The layoff wave: Cloudflare, PayPal, Coinbase, Upwork
54:48 The 10x gap between AI-first and non-AI-first employees
59:52 Unlimited agency and the abundance future
1:00:46 Anthropic's Project Luna runs a retail store
1:03:45 Decoupling labor from value creation
1:05:03 P(doom) round
🔗 Guests:
Anastasios Angelopoulos, Arena: https://arena.ai | @ML_Angelopolous
Nick Harris, Lightmatter: https://lightmatter.co
Philip Johnston, StarCloud: https://starcloud.com | @philipjohnston
🔗 Referenced in this episode:
Thinking Machines, Introducing Interaction Models: https://thinkingmachines.ai/blog/interaction-models/
LMArena leaderboard: https://lmarena.ai
Lightmatter: https://lightmatter.co
Starcloud: https://www.starcloud.com
TechCrunch, Cloudflare says AI made 1,100 jobs obsolete: https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/08/cloudflare-says-ai-made-1100-jobs-obsolete-even-as-revenue-hit-a-record-high/
Fast Company, Tech layoffs this week due to AI (Cloudflare, PayPal, Coinbase, Upwork): https://www.fastcompany.com/91538995/tech-layoffs-due-to-ai-this-week-cloudflare-paypal-coinbase-upwork
Bloomberg, South Korea floats citizen dividend from AI profits: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2026-05-12/korea-s-massive-ai-boom-triggers-call-for-tech-tax-roiling-market
PYMNTS, Inside a retail store run entirely by AI (Andon Labs / Luna): https://www.pymnts.com/artificial-intelligence-2/2026/inside-a-retail-store-run-entirely-by-ai/
Wispr Flow (voice-to-text tool Jason uses): https://wisprflow.ai
Fermi Paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox
Today’s show:
Cerebras just jacked its IPO range to $150–$160 a share, OpenAI bought a consulting firm to seed its $4 billion private-equity joint venture, and a startup in Oakland is electrolyzing magnesium out of seawater for one-third the going price. Alex Wilhelm and Jason Calacanis go deep with AI21 co-CEO Ori Goshen on why model orchestration, not bigger LLMs, will decide who wins enterprise AI.
The crew also covered the decline of OpenClaw, TikTok's new £3.99 ad-free tier, more entries in the live-show sidebar bounty, and had time for a little Off Duty before signing off.
Guest Links:
Timestamps:
0:00 Ori Goshen, CEO of AI21 joins the show
1:20 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!
5:14 Why enterprises care about token cost optimization
6:01 Jamba as open-weight; Maestro as proprietary orchestration
10:08 LinkedIn Jobs - Hire right, the first time. Post your first job and get $100 off towards your job post at https://LinkedIn.com/twist
12:56 AI21 customer roster: FNAC, US tech giants, Israeli companies
19:01 Alex Grant, CEO of Magrathea Metals joins to discuss pulling magnesium from seawater
20:03 Live video of the Oakland pilot electrolyzer
20:10 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.
22:01 Magnesium as a "gateway metal" for aluminum, defense, aerospace
23:20 TETRA joint venture & the Evergreen Project in Arkansas
23:38 Series A close, JV economics: $3,000/ton vs. $7,000/ton market
29:10 Sidebar bounty update: Glass Sidebar (Oliver Choy) demo
30:47 Netsuite - Get the free business guide Demystifying AI at https://netsuite.com/twist
31:47 Sidebar bounty update: Sidecast (Patrick Hughes) demo
36:09 Reducing scope to "real-time fact checker only" for final round
37:24 Ro.co: Ro's insurance checker will let you know if your coverage includes GLP-1s for FREE. Go to https://Ro.co/Twist for your free insurance check.
39:07 Cerebras IPO: $115–$125 → $150–$160 per share
44:19 Will OpenAI's compute commitments to Cerebras actually get funded?
49:19 Fervo Energy IPO — venture-backed geothermal company going public
49:40 OpenAI Deployment Company + Tomoro acquisition explained
53:51 Anthropic's parallel $1.5B PE joint venture with Blackstone & Goldman
This Week In Startups is made possible by:
IM8 Health - https://IM8health.com/TWIST
Every - Every.io
Sentry - https://Sentry.io/TWIST
Banks don’t want to hand over their data to AI labs. So David Moscatelli built a $250,000 box that runs AI on-prem. He already has 1,600 pre-orders. On today’s episode of TWiST, Jason and Alex sit down with the Go Abacus founder and Yanez's Jose Caldera to unpack how regulated industries are getting AI without the cloud, why Bittensor subnet 54 is incentivizing miners to attack identity systems, and why Cloudflare just laid off 20% of its workforce in the same week it raised guidance. The show closes with Jason explaining what it means to build an AI-first startup, and how workers can derisk their future employment!
Guest Links:
Bittensor Subnet 54 on TAOstats
LAUNCH Links:
Founder University Japan application portal
News Links:
Cloudflare lays off 20% of its staff
Coinbase cuts 14% of its staff
Block post on how it is rebuilding its company
Block’s earnings, including its raised guidance
Anthropic’s massive upcoming funding round
WHOOP’s new on-demand clinicians
Timestamps:
0:00 Introduction: Jason in Brooklyn, Knicks playoffs