This Week in Startups

What we’ll learn from Anthropic’s $2-$3T IPO | E2325

This Week In Startups is made possible by: PayPal Open CLA Odoo 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...

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

This Week in Startups

These robots could cut delivery costs by 80% | Next Unicorns This Week In Startups is made possible by: Squarespace Northwest Registered Agent Agree 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...

Zuck’s AI manifesto is a data center PR masterclass | E2323

This Week in Startups

This Week In Startups is made possible by: Every.io NetSuite YSecurity 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...

How AI splits startups into winners and losers | E2322

This Week in Startups

This Week In Startups is made possible by: DigitalOcean Sentry Lightfield 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...

Airtable’s 80% off value crash: VCs explain why it’s still a win | E2321

This Week in Startups

This Week In Startups is made possible by: Vanta Agree Odoo 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...

How Bespoke faked AI until it actually worked (w/ Akemi Tsunagawa) | E2320

This Week in Startups

This Week In Startups is made possible by: Odoo Quo Northwest Registered Agent 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:...

Why AI has no taste and how to fix it (w/ Thais Castello Branco) | E2319

This Week in Startups

This Week In Startups is made possible by: YSecurity MongoDB Odoo 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...

Banning Chinese robots isn’t regulatory capture | E2318

This Week in Startups

This Week In Startups is made possible by: Northwest Registered Agent- Odoo - MongoDB - Today’s show: The FCC’s decision to ban Chinese humanoid robots over security concerns is a boon to American startups, which now face a narrower competitive market. But where should we draw the line on security over competition? Menlo Ventures’ Deedy Das, Weisburd Pierce’s David Weisburd, Plexo Capital’s Lo Toney, and LAUNCH’s Jason Calcanis broke down how they differentiate between legitimate security concerns and purported regulatory capture. Today’s venture capital roundtable also...

While other cultivated meat companies are collapsing, this one turned a profit | E2317

This Week in Startups

This Week In Startups is made possible by: Every.io MongoDB Agree Today’s show: *Most lab-grown meat companies have already gone under. It’s expensive to produce, and there’s little demand from real-world consumers. But Tokyo’s IntegriCulture is still standing after selling their proprietary serum to cosmetics companies. On Episode 3 of TWiST from Tokyo, Jason sits down with Dr. Yuki Hanyu, an Oxford-trained chemist who started a DIY meat movement out of a comic convention and turned it into Japan’s first cell-cultured protein company. PLUS why the cultivated meat market stalled...

Why quantum has been “10 years away” for 30 years | E2316

This Week in Startups

This Week In Startups is made possible by: PayPal Open DigitalOcean Rippling Today’s show: *For three decades now, we’ve been told that breakthroughs in quantum computing are right around the corner. So why hasn’t anything materialized? On TWiST in Tokyo, Jason sits down with Yaqumo CEO Kazuhiro Nakashoji and discusses what needed to change (like better algorithms and hardware), and why we may finally be nearing quantum’s big moment. Find out why quantum machines are so error-prone, explore the unusual international quantum supply chain, and get a heads-up about the...

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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 design” tweet, got into a kerfuffle with Figma CEO Dylan Field, and wound up making a brand new J-Trade. AND we’re talking about the Dept. of Education’s new “do no harm” policy, the Brown University AI cheating chart that’s blowing up social media, and Lon has fresh streaming recommendations in an all-new Off Duty.

Guest:

Danny Bernstein on X: https://x.com/bernsteind

Reservoir Farms: https://reservoir.co/

Reservoir VC: https://reservoir.vc/

Relevant Links:

Bonsai Robotics: https://bonsairobotics.ai/

Root AI acquired by AppHarvest: https://www.therobotreport.com/root-ai-acquired-by-appharvest-for-60m/

John Deere: https://www.deere.com/en-us/

Western Growers Association: https://www.wga.com/

Tanimura & Antle: https://www.taproduce.com/

Naturipe Berry Growers: https://www.naturipefarms.com/

Driscoll’s: https://www.driscolls.com/

Taylor Farms: https://www.taylorfarms.com/

The Wonderful Company: https://www.wonderful.com/

Capital Factory: https://www.capitalfactory.com/

Gal Shir “quitting design” post: https://x.com/galshirart/status/2074854464729629060

Dylan Field response to Gal Shir: https://x.com/zoink/status/2075290218660298807

JCal response to Field and “J-Trade”: https://x.com/Jason/status/2075481565115654305

Figma: https://www.figma.com/

Dept. of Education: “Do No Harm” policy announcement: https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-issues-final-rule-hold-all-colleges-and-universities-accountable-low-earning-programs

NPR coverage on Dept. of Education earnings test: https://www.npr.org/2026/06/30/nx-s1-5835631/turner-camhi-do-no-harm-college-loans

Paul Graham “cheating chart” post: https://x.com/paulg/status/2075031014628311236

Off Duty Recommendations:

“Lioness” on Paramount+: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNRQ0PR4a8U

“Mayor of Kingstown” on Paramount+: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkQzvwxOp0s

“Human Vapor” on Netflix: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xe6dRKVAb8

“Sugar” on Apple TV+: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twvPGxuEOEA

“Wind River” (now on Netflix): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZgN0dpFoaE

“Not Fade Away” by Peter Barton & Laurence Shames: https://www.amazon.com/Not-Fade-Away-Short-Lived/dp/1579546889

Timestamps:

0:00 Jason's ongoing World Tour

1:43 Danny Bernstein joins live from Reservoir Farms

3:38 What is "specialty crop agriculture"

5:15 Why strawberries are the "white whale" of AgTech

6:55 The labor crisis in farming

9:20 Why AgTech never scaled

9:51 NetSuite - For the first time, you can try NetSuite Next for free. If your revenues are at least in the seven figures, go to https://NetSuite.ai/TWIST

10:51 Inside Reservoir's business model

17:44 Agriculture as national security

20:09 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.

22:15 Did AI beat a designer at design?

30:56 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

37:23 The "do no harm" college earnings test

43:27 Brown University students cheated on their midterms

52:22 Lon's streaming recommendations

59:46 Jason's new snake grabber

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