This Week in Startups
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@Jason's deep dive into startups and tech featuring tactical & practical tips for founders We're hiring! Apply: https://t.co/V8yHdYG0T7
Videos
This is the electric plane Elon dreamed of! Anders Forslund of Heart Aerospace joins @jason to show off their electric plane, which used up just $5 worth of power for a full 20-minute trip. Could this change short-haul flights? What locations would these flights best be used at?
This Week in Startups4,556,490 Aufrufe • vor 1 Monat
Jason posts his monthly “Bitcoin is dead” and the internet loses it. @jason: “Why put your resources into a dead network?” “There are far too many dynamic places to put your money that are creating much more value.” “Every month I do my Bitcoin is dead post when I’m bored.” “Now there’s three people who want to bet me $1 million that it’s going to hit an all time high.”
This Week in Startups43,428 Aufrufe • vor 1 Tag
Jason Calacanis breaks down the viral 60 Minutes clip of Elizabeth Holmes and says her exact words were “people at Hopkins, not Hopkins.” He predicts the new Nathan Fielder doc will convince half its viewers she was railroaded. Misleading, fraud, or both? @jason This Week in Startups
This Week in Startups31,266 Aufrufe • vor 3 Tagen
When Bank of America wouldn’t let Jason take out $20K from his account for a Vegas trip… he decided it was time for a new financial partner. So he called three banks and asked each one to send him $10K in $2 bills. One delivered… and became his new bank. It’s the classic “Van Halen rider” test. If you still see Brown M&Ms in the proverbial bowl, the venue didn’t read your rider, and doesn’t really value your business. A vital lesson in picking your partners with diligence. (cc: @jason, Lon Harris, Van Halen, Bank of America)
This Week in Startups863,250 Aufrufe • vor 6 Monaten
J-Cal says the exact dollar amount at which money stops mattering: $10 million. Park it, earn 5%, and you're clearing half a million a year without lifting a finger. You can go do whatever you want or nothing at all. That's real F-U money. Everything past that is just keeping score.
This Week in Startups471,650 Aufrufe • vor 5 Monaten
Misha Laskin of Reflection AI joins Jason to discuss why companies want to own their AI rather than rent it, and why open-source AI might end up being the safest choice for future security. Misha argues that more eyes on these models make them safer, not more dangerous. Find out how close he believes the US open source models are to the top Chinese offerings, and why Misha believes the American industry should start moving even faster on this TWiST 1-on-1 exclusive. @jason Misha Laskin Reflection 0:00 Why companies are switching from renting AI to owning it 9:43 How Reflection sells the whole AI stack 10:57 PaperOS: Paper is the legal backbone for thousands of startup founders and fund managers - including Launch. Use to get your cap table free for a year - or two years if you're leaving Carta. 12:01 Who is moving AI onto their own servers 15:10 What it took to train Beam 20:59 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 22:02 How reinforcement learning tasks get built 27:14 Hackers heat French supermarket fridges 29:40 The AI that broke out of its sandbox to cheat 31:38 Odoo: The all-in-one business platform. Your first app is free! Get started today at 33:43 Why open source makes software safer 38:46 The encryption fight and Tim Cook's stand 43:26 Why China raced ahead in open models 48:08 How Beam stacks up against Chinese models 50:54 When American open models catch up 59:12 Staying independent 🎥 Watch the full episode here 👇
This Week in Startups49,338 Aufrufe • vor 15 Tagen
Have you been mass buying Mac Minis for your new OpenClaw🦞 workflows? One man who skated to puck is Alex Cheema, founder of EXO Labs! He joins TWiST today to show @jason how his open source software helps users connect all of their Mac Minis. Check out how you can start running your own AI compute cluster!
This Week in Startups680,613 Aufrufe • vor 8 Monaten
Jason has wanted to build an “annotation” Chrome extension forever, but it would’ve cost $500K to hire a team to make it just a few years ago. In 2026, he can put up a $5,000 bounty and get dozens of primo vibecoded submissions. We’re checking out the top three finalists so far… See why one contender scored an 8.5/10 and got Jason thinking about spinning it off into an actual startup. PLUS a few Ask Jason bonus questions. @jason Lon Harris 0:00 Why Jason bought 0:33 The original idea: highlight any sentence on the web and dispute it 2:01 The rules: the code is open source, and Jason can cancel any time 2:42 Submission 1: Robert's 10:07 - For all of your incorporation, banking, payroll, benefits, accounting, taxes or other back-office administration needs, visit 12:12 Submission 1 Scoring 12:27 Submission 2: Allan Shifflet's take 13:55 What it got right: profiles, follower counts, trending topics 16:39 Submission 3: and buying the typo domain on purpose 20:19 Northwest Registered Agent - Got a new business idea? Northwest Registered Agent helps you bring it to life. Get a free domain, email, phone number, and more - with no purchase required! Learn more at 23:25 Final scores, and how to enter round two 24:47 Incubating annotated inside a venture firm 29:45 Sentry - New users can get $240 in free credits when they go to and use the code TWIST 30:17 Ask Jason: a homeless founder with two startup ideas 🎥 Watch the full episode here 👇
This Week in Startups100,271 Aufrufe • vor 1 Monat
According to Sam Lessin, about 1% of Slow Ventures’ bets turn out to be fraud. His take: if your seed portfolio has no fraud whatsoever, you’re probably not being creative enough. Jason, Sam, and fellow VC roundtable experts Paige Doherty and Jenny Fielding argue that diligence has to scale with the check. If you’re giving out $25K or $100K, you don’t have the time or funds for deep diligence. But if you’re writing a $100M check, you can’t afford to skip it. Hear the panel discuss when a little diligence is good enough and what went wrong with Theranos, FTX, and other infamous disasters on TWiST 2353. @jason, sam lessin 🏴☠️, Paige Finn Doherty 🪩, Jenny Fielding, Slow Ventures, Behind Genius, Everywhere Ventures, Lon Harris 0:00 Our new “This Week in VC” newsletter 2:57 Panel intro: Sam Lessin, Paige Doherty, Jenny Fielding 8:51 Why gambling loses appeal for VCs 11:44 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations - interviews, meetings, calls - you need a Plaud NotePin S. You can check it out at and use code TWIST for 10% off! 17:00 DigitalOcean - Head to to start building on DigitalOcean's AI-Native Cloud today - and cut your AI workload costs by up to 50% 18:17 Best moments from “You Can See Everything” 22:24 Unreliable narrators and unknowable situations 25:23 Living in a post-truth moment 30:44 Due diligence horror stories 33:27 Odoo: The all-in-one business platform. Your first app is free! Get started today at 35:32 The VCs remember their fraud investments 39:21 How LAUNCH trains founders to prep for diligence 45:13 How Elizabeth Holmes kept raising money 55:36 Would you invest in an Elizabeth Holmes company? 58:09 Thanks to our partners at Rippling! Head to and get the only AI built to give you full visibility across your startup and take complex actions across your entire business. 1:03:10 Why seed funds need pro rata rights 1:09:44 When “founder friendly” means rolling over 1:17:07 The three investor relationships: team, founders, LPs 1:21:44 ElevenLabs “Archer” voice controversy 1:27:58 How NIL deals reshaped college sports 1:34:36 Cameo for Business and long-tail celeb endorsements 1:36:33 Portfolio company shoutouts 🎥 Watch the full episode here 👇
This Week in Startups18,032 Aufrufe • vor 8 Tagen
Sam Altman walked into YC, offering founders $1M in free tokens for a slice of equity. Jason's advice: run. OpenAI is watching your token usage, ranking the winners, then shipping the top 5 as native features. Get off the frontier models, use open source, and own your data. @jason
This Week in Startups196,834 Aufrufe • vor 4 Monaten
Here’s why OpenHome creator Jesse Leimgruber says, if you’re still prompting OpenClaw🦞 on a screen, you’re falling behind! The whole point of AI agents is that they can do things for you in the real world. But what’s the point if you’re still interacting with them exclusively through a laptop. That’s why Jesse created a smart speaker that allows you to interact vocally with your agent from any room in your home, 24/7. Having an agent listen in on your conversations, and learn all about you and your life in context, opens up an entirely new level of productivity… and might just save your Valentine’s Day as well.
This Week in Startups209,839 Aufrufe • vor 8 Monaten
Chamath: “Facebook, Tesla, Google… they almost had an allergic reaction to the traditional software stack. They refused to use it.” Find out why he raised a $135M Series A to redefine development, giving every enterprise the opportunity to build and maintain their own software without the $4T in consultants and middleware that usually comes with it… in the debut episode of TWiST All Star Summer 2026. 0:00 It's TWiST All-Star Summer! 0:44 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations — interviews, meetings, calls — you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at 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 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 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 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 cc: Chamath Palihapitiya, @jason, 8090 🎥 Watch the full episode here 👇
This Week in Startups110,050 Aufrufe • vor 4 Monaten
This founder’s viral plea to Trump: Don’t kill eCommerce 🇺🇸📦 Steven Borrelli Steven Borrelli, founder of Cuts, joins @jason and alex 🏴☠️🇺🇸🇺🇦 to break down the massive blow new tariffs and the end of the 321 exemption could deliver to bootstrapped American brands. 🔹 145% tariffs = business-killing math — no brand can survive that kind of hit. 🔹 CUTS ships from Mexico using 321 rules — but that loophole ends May 2. 🔹 No time to pivot: Moving production takes 6–9 months — not 6–9 days. 🔹 Tariffs ≠ higher prices — they mean no sales at all. 🔹 Borrelli says: “We’re living the American Dream — don’t forget the bootstrappers.” This is a must-watch for anyone building (or buying from) American eComm brands.
This Week in Startups408,283 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr
Wild conspiracy theory: Anthropic got sabotaged by its own backers… Amazon flagged a jailbreak to the government to subvert a rival it secretly competes with. @jason isn't buying it. "There's no grand conspiracy here." The real story is much more boring, and more believable… What do you think?
This Week in Startups114,485 Aufrufe • vor 4 Monaten