Hugging Face Co-Founder on Open-Source, Microduck, and NVIDIA | E2339

More from This Week in Startups

1. 

   25 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 26 min

   A rogue OpenAI agent hacked Australia’s government. Does this matter? | E2342

   This Week In Startups is made possible by: https://lightfield.app/ http://getpaper.ai/twist https://conservationfund.org/ http://Plaud.ai/twist https://www.athena.com/jcal Today’s show: An OpenAI agent breached Australia's Medicare statistics portal in June, and it took 84 days for the Frontier Lab to publicly acknowledge it. Jason and Lon dig into whether this is an important cautionary tale about alignment, or if PM Anthony Albanese looking to join the AI conversation. Then Bryant Chou of Ploy joins to explain skipping pre-seed and seed entirely to raise $27M, and why he’s taking his time…

2. 

   23 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 27 min

   VCs Would Bet on Open-Source AI Over OpenAI and Anthropic | E2341

   This Week In Startups is made possible by: Northwest Registered Agent: https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twistdomain Odoo: http://Odoo.com/twist Rippling: http://Rippling.ai/twist Plaud: http://Plaud.ai/twist Harmonic: http://harmonic.ai/ Today’s show: Anthropic and OpenAI released cheaper models on the same day with Claude Opus 5.5 and GPT-6, and these VCs would still bet on open source. Jason brings on Dave McClure of Practical Venture Capital, Jeff Clavier of Uncork Capital, and Jenny Fielding of Everywhere Ventures to discuss the argument for open-weight models over the frontier…

3. 

   21 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 10 min

   Elon's New Hyperloop, Trump's AI Rename, and a Model That Won't Talk | E2340

   This Week In Startups is made possible by: Vanta: https://www.vanta.com/twist DigitalOcean: http://do.co/twist Lightfield: https://lightfield.app/ Plaud: http://Plaud.ai/twist Today’s show: Elon revives the Hyperloop, promising a 30-minute commute between Austin and San Antonio. It's the kind of project that could reshape how Texans think about getting between two major cities entirely. Then, Jason and Lon explain why this pitch is different from the other Boring Company tunnels. Learn why President Trump wants to rename artificial intelligence itself and launch an "AI Force." It's a move…

4. 

   15 Sep 2026 · 19 min

   90% of AI prototypes never reach production (w/ Temporal's Samar Abbas) | AI Basics

   The TWiST AI Basics series is made possible by Google for Startups! Build context-aware AI workflows using DeepMind models and orchestration tools with Google for Startups' new Startup technical guide on generative media. Get the guide here: https://goo.gle/technical_guide Today's show: The demo works, the vibes are immaculate, but then the app falls apart the second real users touch it. On today's AI Basics, Temporal co-founder and CEO Samar Abbas says the problem isn't with the model at all. You're missing a harness, the layer that keeps an AI agent's work durable, secure, and recoverable…

5. 

   E2337 · 14 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 11 min

   Ask Jason: AI Extinction, Grok's Rogue Meme Coin & Weed Farms as Data Centers | E2337

   This Week In Startups is made possible by: Quo: http://quo.com/TWiST The Conservation Fund: https://conservationfund.org CLA: https://app.notion.com/p/withyou-help-eb83a84d32cf43f59af13cb11e2f56c3?source=copy_link Today's show: A 27-year-old Anthropic researcher quit last week warning that AI could cause human extinction, and by Friday, a caller's 76-year-old mother was texting her in a panic. Jason's answer: the labs are already shipping the safeguards Doomers say don't exist. On an all live calls episode of TWiST, learn about the AI implications Jason is actually scared of, and why it…

6. 

   E2336 · 11 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 13 min

   The Pentagon Wants Equity in AI Startups | E2336

   This Week In Startups is made possible by: DigitalOcean — Want to see what building on a true AI-native platform looks like? Head to do.co/twist to start building on DigitalOcean's AI-Native Cloud today — and cut your AI workload costs by up to 50%. Odoo: The all-in-one business platform. Your first app is free! Get started for today at Odoo.com/twist Upwork helps businesses find highly skilled freelance professionals for specialized work. Post your job for free at upwork.com Today's show: The Pentagon is reportedly in talks to lend AI cloud startup Fluidstack $5. billion, and Jason thinks…

7. 

   8 Oct 2026 · 1 hr 19 minNew

   What VCs Really Think About Personal AI Agents | E2347

   This Week In Startups is made possible by: Plaud: http://Plaud.ai/twist Odoo: http://Odoo.com/twist Northwest Registered Agent: http://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twistdomain Quo: https://www.quo.com/perks/twist Today’s show: A personal AI agent that’s still invite-only just hit a $10 billion valuation. Guest host Deedy Das of Menlo Ventures is joined by Kanu Gulati of Khosla Ventures, Chris Farmer of SignalFire, and Sheel Mohnot of Better Tomorrow Ventures to debate whether Instinct can beat Meta’s Muse, what they actually use their own agents for, and what breaks when everyone’s agent…

8. 

   7 Oct 2026 · 1 hr 11 minNew

   Jason Mentors The Next Generation + Why AI Is Bad at Teaching (Aristotle Interview) | E2346

   This Week In Startups is made possible by: Vanta: https://www.vanta.com/twist DigitalOcean: https://do.co/twist Sentry: http://sentry.io/twist Plaud: http://Plaud.ai/twist Today’s show: The smarter AI gets, the more it just does the work for you, and the less helpful it becomes as a tutor. Shan Reddy of Aristotle joins Jason to demo a voice-first tutor built to run a session the way a $200-an-hour human tutor would. We also dive into why frontier models are trained to hand you answers rather than build real understanding. PLUS, in Ask Jason, an incoming Fordham student (Jason’s alma mater!)…

9. 

   3 Oct 2026 · 53 min

   Inside The Startup Building Uncensored AI (Abliteration AI) | EP 2345

   This Week In Startups is made possible by: Every.io: http://every.io/ Northwest Registered Agent: https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twistdomain Odoo: http://Odoo.com/twist Plaud: http://Plaud.ai/twist Today’s show: What can AI do with the guardrails OFF? Devon Thomas of Abliteration.ai thinks defenders should have access to the same kinds of tools, rather than having one hand tied behind their backs. Then, on Ask Jason, learn what AI means for the billable hour from a legal-tech founder. PLUS, are AI microdramas a real ecosystem or a fad, and does AI finally make solo founders…

10. 

    1 Oct 2026 · 1 hr 18 min

    Justin Kan & Brian Chesky: The Rejections That Built Twitch and Airbnb | E2344

    This Week In Startups is made possible by: Plaud: http://Plaud.ai/twist CLA: https://claconnect.com/tech Sentry: http://sentry.io/twist Lightfield: http://sentry.io/twist Today’s show: Google once interviewed the entire Justin.tv (now Twitch) team and then walked away from an acquisition deal, saying they weren’t good enough. Seven investors passed on buying 10% of Airbnb for $150,000, a stake pegged at roughly $9.25 billion today. Lon Harris and Alex Wilhelm revisit classic TWiST interviews with Justin Kan of Twitch and Brian Chesky of Airbnb to find out what those founders understood that…

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