Why the most expensive Seed deals are the cheapest | E2299
Release Date: 06/10/2026
The AI Securing Your Workforce Before a Mistake Ever Becomes a Breach | E2314
This Week in Startups
This Week In Startups is made possible by: Vanta Superhuman YSecurity Today’s show: *Cybersecurity has long focused on cleaning up a system AFTER a breach but Ent founder Brandon Dixon says that’s backwards. He just raised a $100M seed round to put an AI agent on everyone’s company laptops that catches the risky clicks, leaked files, or rogue agents BEFORE they wreck havoc. PLUS Clawra creator David Im return swith his new project, Sume’s Avatar, a multi-model orchestration layer that generates 60-second UGC videos from a single prompt… and gets it right on the first try, rather...
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The dawn of surgery bots + buy a home for $250 (w/ Andromeda & Mogul) | E2313
This Week in Startups
The dawn of surgery bots + buy a home for $250 (w/ Andromeda & Mogul) | E2313 This Week In Startups is made possible by: Northwest Registered Agent CLA MongoDB Today’s show: *Andromeda Surgical is building the autonomy layer that could one day allow robots to perform surgery. Rather than building their own intricate, complex hardware, Andromeda uses off-the-shelf arms from a German manufacturer, and focuses on the software that will allow doctors to operate it from an iPad. Plus Mogul co-founder and CEO Alex Blackwood shows Jason how his platform lets anyone buy fractional shares...
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A Startup Is Trying to Buy PayPal… Craziest Deal of 2026! | E2312
This Week in Startups
This Week In Startups is made possible by: MongoDB - Rippling - - Today’s show: Hustle Fund’s Eric Bahn and Chapter One’s Jeff Morris Jr. join our venture capital roundtable directly following the news breaking that Stripe wants to buy PayPal. The possible transaction highlights how little interest today’s leading startups have in going public any time soon. With host Alex Wilhelm, Bahn and Morris dug into when startups should burn the boats à la Fin, physical AI as the next frontier, the power of Silicon Valley groupthink, and how startups are approaching the first days of...
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Jason turned $11 and one tweet into 1.1M views | E2311
This Week in Startups
This Week In Startups is made possible by: Quo PayPal Open Northwest Registered Agent Today’s show: *Jason spent $11 building out PodMeme, an AI tool that tracks down the best segments from top podcasts about a specific topic, then stitches them together into a single stream. His post laying out how he did it, featuring a simple screenshot of the product, got all the way to 1.1M views in just a few days. It’s a simple fact: builders love to see what other people are building, and growing your new project “in public,” sharing your journey on social media, is a great way to develop...
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Danny Bernstein left Big Tech to fund farm-bots | E2310
This Week in Startups
This Week In Startups is made possible by: NetSuite Squarespace YSecurity Today’s show: *America posted 400,000 farm jobs last year, and fewer than 1% got a single domestic applicant. Danny Bernstein of Reservoir believes it’s time to start automating this backbreaking labor, like picking stone fruit in 110°F temperatures. So he built the world’s first on-farm robotics incubator on 40 acres of California farmland. Here’s why he argues that automating farms isn’t just a new opportunity, it’s a national security issue. PLUS Jason responded to Gal Shir’s viral “AI beat me at...
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Why Data Is the Next $1 Trillion Market
This Week in Startups
This Week In Startups is made possible by: Digital Ocean - - - . Today’s show: How many startups matter in tech? Fewer than you think. That’s why venture capitalists are tripping over themselves to get onto their cap tables, no matter the cost. Why? Footwork’s Nikhil Basu Trivedi argues that the Valley has never been more “power-law-pilled” than it is today. Basu Trivedi joined Cendana Capital’s Michael Kim and TWiST’s Alex Wilhelm to go deep on secondary markets, the state of startup M&A, why the SaaSpocalypse may be temporary, and what could trigger a...
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$100T is managed by “human duct tape” | E2308
This Week in Startups
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Today’s show:
*There are $100 trillion in global assets sitting on top of what Hanover Park co-founder/CEO Chris Hladcz
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Why the VC Hype Cycle Always Gets It Wrong | VC Roundtable | E2307
This Week in Startups
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Chamath on why young people need more agency, risk, and adventure
This Week in Startups
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Today’s show:
*It’s another All Star Summer, as we wel
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Why F1 Teams are Replacing Wind Tunnels with Smart Tape | E2305
This Week in Startups
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Today’s show:
F1 teams spend up to a third of their budgets on aerodynamics, often utilizing wind tunnels to simulate what happens on the track.
But Lyall Davenport of SKN Systems created a sensor-embedde
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Two days before SpaceX launches the largest IPO in history at a flat $135/share, our VC roundtable drops a scorcher: The top 1% of seed deals might actually be underpriced. Plus: the "Sequoia scam" dual-tranche controversy, tokens-for-equity deals, and whether Claude Fable 5 is a true step function.
Tomasz Tunguz (Theory Ventures), Michael Downing (Castalia Capital), and Paige Doherty (Behind Genius Ventures) join Alex to go deep on Seed investing, startup economics, AI spend, and the impact of smarter AI on the founder journey.
Guest Links:
Tomasz Tunguz: https://x.com/ttunguz
Theory Ventures: https://theoryvc.com/
Michael Downing: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeldowning/
Castalia Capital: https://castalia.capital/
Paige Doherty: https://x.com/paigefinnn
Behind Genius Ventures: https://www.behindgeniusventures.com
Show Links:
Anthropic’s IPO announcement: https://www.anthropic.com/news/confidential-draft-s1-sec
OpenAI’s IPO announcement: https://openai.com/index/openai-submits-confidential-s-1/
Bending Spoons F-1 filing: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/2004711/000110465926071170/tm2613674-7_f1.htm
SpaceX IPO filing: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1181412/000162828026040364/spaceexplorationtechnologib.htm
Brendan Foody’s post on Sequoia: https://x.com/BrendanFoody/status/2063470286515683759
Claude Fable 5: https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-fable-5-mythos-5
OpenRouter data on Chinese models: https://openrouter.ai/rankings?view=day
Saronic: https://www.saronic.com/
MotherDuck: https://motherduck.com/
Nox Metals: https://noxmetals.co/
Timestamps:
0:00 Tomasz Tunguz, Michael Downing & Paige Doherty join
2:07 The SpaceX IPO and the IPO window
4:22 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!
6:30 The new bar: 10x growth (not 3x) to raise a great Series A
8:46 Net-new AI budgets
9:46 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.
11:09 How some founders are outgrowing venture capital
11:44 The power pendulum swings back to founders
12:46 SpaceX vs. OpenAI vs. Anthropic: Which IPO is most enticing?
19:53 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.
26:07 Tokens-for-equity, GPU-hours-for-equity & the financialization of compute
28:35 Founders airing VC dirty laundry (napping VCs included)
29:56 Netsuite - The business landscape is very chaotic right now. That's why you need NetSuite, by Oracle. Get the free business guide Demystifying AI at https://Netsuite.com/TWiST
36:38 Claude Fable 5 first impressions: pricing, benchmarks & orchestration
45:42 Where value accrues: application layer vs. models vs. private data
1:00:06 Nationalization of AI labs: Bernie Sanders, Sam Altman & Trump agree?!
1:01:25 Portfolio spotlights: Saronic, MotherDuck, and Nox Metals
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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
Check out Jason’s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis