This Week in AI

This Week In Startups is made possible by:PaypalToday’s show:XBOW’s AI has held the top rank on the HackerOne leaderboard for more than a year. On TWiAI, founder Oege de Moor (who also built GitHub Copilot) tells us that no one’s infrastructure is truly safe anymore, now that open-weight models are trailing the American frontier by only a couple of months. Staging a serious cyberattack is now cheap and accessible, with attackers able to get dangerously solid results quickly from relatively cheap, open-source options from China.Guests:Runbin Dong on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/runbindongScale Social: https://scalesocial.ai/Oege de Moor on X: https://x.com/oegerikusXBOW: https://xbow.com/Relevant LinksWSJ: Nvidia-Poolside deal: https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/nvidia-is-spending-6-billion-to-build-a-powerful-u-s-alternative-to-chinese-ai-c51c38ccPoolside: https://poolside.ai/Silicon Angle: Nvidia in talks to invest in Perplexity: https://siliconangle.com/2026/08/24/nvidia-reportedly-eyes-another-investment-in-perplexity-ai-at-a-30b-valuation/Perplexity: https://www.perplexity.ai/Bloomberg: Chinese hackers using DeepSeek: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-24/chinese-hackers-use-deepseek-to-boost-attacks-researchers-say-mt7o4205Nvidia: Groq 3 LPX enters full production: https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-groq-3-lpx-now-in-full-production-with-world-class-speed-for-agentic-aiCNBC: Groq-Nvidia acqui-hire deal: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/24/nvidia-buying-ai-chip-startup-groq-for-about-20-billion-biggest-deal.htmlOpenAI on early Jalapeño results: https://openai.com/index/jalapeno-first-results/Stanley Druckenmiller WSJ op-ed: https://www.wsj.com/opinion/let-the-bond-market-speak-81529d74Druckenmiller confirms op-ed was authored with AI: https://www.notus.org/media/stanley-druckenmillers-wsj-op-ed-bessent-aiPangram: https://www.pangram.com/Alabama AG: OpenAI subpoena announcement: https://www.alabamaag.gov/attorney-general-marshall-launches-investigation-into-openai-and-sam-altman-for-massive-artificial-intelligence-data-breach/Ox Alpha on OpenRouter: https://openrouter.ai/stealth/ox-alphaApple: M6 and M5 Ultra press release: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/08/apple-introduces-m6-and-m5-ultra-for-a-big-leap-in-performance-and-ai-compute/9 to 5 Mac: M5 Mac Studio launch: https://9to5mac.com/2026/08/25/apple-unveils-next-generation-mac-studio-with-m5-max-and-m5-ultra/DHH on X: Ubiquity comments: https://x.com/dhh/status/2087272392557007042Shane Parrish on X: Ubiquiti Wi-Fi set-up: https://x.com/shaneparrish/status/2088672566558761065Timestamps:0:00 Today's guests: Runbin Dong (Scale Social) and Oege de Moor (XBOW)2:12 Open-weight models are right behind the frontier8:22 Your infrastructure is not ready for what's coming13:07 Nvidia's Perplexity announcement16:43 Spending $2K/month on AI tools per employee21:59 Why security teams have to lean on AI25:19 The Great Chip Land Grab32:02 Jason's multi-agent restaurant-style workflow34:54 AI ghostwriting is lip syncing45:18 Are rogue AI agents breaking the law?52:38 The dangers of using a stealth model58:57 Apple's new M5 Mac Studio1:06:43 Everyone's fav AI tool of the momentSubscribe 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 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 newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis

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Today’s show:
*On “All In,” Gavin Baker said that Anthropic leadership privately believes that it could one day become “the only private company in the world.” The ensuing street fight on X turned into a referendum on doomerism, the nature of regulatory capture, and why the public hates AI so darn much.
Jason’s take: If a frontier lab really believes they’re destined to be the world’s only company, they’re studying your data and planning to steal your business.
PLUS why AI agents don’t understand it’s wrong to cheat (and how we can teach them), why Grok Bot may be AI’s “iPhone moment,” and the panel reacts to Amazon feeding rare books into a dino-themed shredding machine.
Guests
Galina Antova on X: https://x.com/GalinaAntova
Kai: https://www.kai.security/
Eric Ho on X: https://x.com/eric_ho
Goodfire: https://www.goodfire.com/
Silico: https://www.goodfire.com/silico
Relevant Links
All-In Podcast: Gavin Baker on Anthropic: https://x.com/theallinpod/status/2088367978270142811
Sholto Douglas response: https://x.com/_sholtodouglas/status/2088463770318516734
Gavin Baker response: https://x.com/GavinSBaker/status/2088611616577253502
Dario Amodei response: https://x.com/DarioAmodei/status/2088758816376807762
Zuckerberg AI manifesto: https://www.meta.com/thefutureisforeveryone/
Hugging Face: Anatomy of a Frontier Lab Agent Intrusion: https://huggingface.co/blog/agent-intrusion-technical-timeline
Simon Willison: OpenAI’s accidental cyberattack on Hugging Face: https://simonwillison.net/2026/Jul/22/openai-cyberattack/
SWE-bench Leaderboards: https://www.swebench.com/
xAI: Introducing Grok Bot: https://x.ai/news/introducing-grok-bot
Peter Yang praises Grok Bot: https://x.com/petergyang/status/2089401696946634801?s=20
Wispr Flow: https://wisprflow.ai/
@Aaronp613 on X: AirPods with Cameras in action: https://x.com/aaronp613/status/2089522745184760112?s=20
9to5 Mac: AirPods with cameras get their clearest leak yet: https://9to5mac.com/2026/08/17/airpods-with-camera-get-their-clearest-leak-yet/
Toms Hardware: Google Buys Spirit Airlines Data for AI Training: https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/google-buys-spirit-airlines-data-for-ai-training-for-just-usd10-million-purchase-includes-hundreds-of-millions-of-emails-microsoft-teams-chats-billions-of-flight-pricing-records-and-anonymized-passenger-records

Micro1: https://www.micro1.ai/

Timestamps:
0:00 Why is everyone mad at Dario Amodei?
1:47 Is Anthropic training to kill your company?
10:10 How to talk to the public about cyber risk
15:33 Reward hacking and sycophancy
21:55 Why do models care about rewards?
28:55 Is Grok Bot an iPhone Moment?
38:26 First look at AirPods with Cameras
42:16 Why Google bought Spirit Airlines' data
48:52 Amazon is scanning and shredding rare books
59:06 Can we build a "moral layer" on top of models?
1:01:14 Your LLM could catch a mind virus
1:10:55 Are we already in the AGI Era?
1:14:17 Silicon Valley's lost hippie vibes
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Check 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 McFarland
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Today’s show:
Anthropic’s new Claude watermark travels around any and all copy-and-pasted text. Is this a logical response to AI slop, or more overreach from those regulation-loving Europeans? The panel agrees that identifying AI outputs has a place, but divides on how the world should get there.
PLUS everyone’s favorite section of Mark Zuckerberg’s 6500-word techno-optimist AI manifesto, exploring the frontier labs’ blatant hypocrisy around distillation, and why Texas is hitting the pause button on 474 GW of proposed data centers.

Guests:
Will Bryk: https://x.com/WilliamBryk
Exa: https://exa.ai/
Josh Sirota: https://x.com/joshua_sirota
Eragon: https://www.eragon.ai/
Kashif “Kash” Ali: https://x.com/ChKashifAli
TaxGPT: https://www.taxgpt.com/

Relevant Links:
Anthropic: How Claude marks AI-generated content: https://support.claude.com/en/articles/16266773-how-claude-marks-ai-generated-content
Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA): https://c2pa.org/
EU AI Act: Article 50 transparency obligations: https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/article/50/
TechCrunch: Pangram Raises $9M: https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/29/as-ai-content-floods-the-internet-pangram-raises-9m-to-detect-it/
TechCrunch: Anthropic’s landmark copyright settlement is approved: https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/20/anthropics-landmark-1-5b-copyright-settlement-is-approved/
World ID iris scanning orb: https://world.org/world-id
Time: Sam Altman voices concern about “Dead Internet Theory”: https://time.com/7316046/sam-altman-dead-internet-theory/
Meta: The Future is for Everyone: https://about.fb.com/news/2026/08/the-future-is-for-everyone/
Meta: Introducing Muse Glimmer: https://research.meta.ai/blog/introducing-muse-glimmer-open-agentic-model
Texas: Gov. Abbott directs comprehensive data center audit: https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-directs-comprehensive-data-center-audit
Texas Tribune: New data center projects frozen: https://www.texastribune.org/2026/08/03/texas-data-center-project-audit-greg-abbott/
ERCOT: https://www.ercot.com/
Public Utility Commission of Texas: https://www.puc.texas.gov/
TechCrunch on Sirota’s “software is dead” thesis: https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/18/this-startup-wants-to-make-enterprise-software-look-more-like-a-prompt/
River AI: https://river.ai/
Thinking Machines Lab: https://thinkingmachines.ai/

Timestamps:

0:00 Guest Intros
3:30 Anthropic to watermark Claude text
5:50 Cracking down on AI Slop
10:45 Will slop-trackers push users to open source
16:21 Jason's "No Clankers" proposal
23:01 Parsing Zuckerberg's techno-utopian manifesto
39:27 The distillation double standard
44:28 "When you're behind, go open…"
51:17 Texas freezes new data centers
1:04:12 Is software dead?
1:05:39 Software managing, not engineering
1:10:24 Everyone is vibecoding
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Check 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 McFarland
Check out Jason’s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis
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Today’s show:
China’s Alibaba just dropped a 2.4 trillion parameter open weight model that the company claims only trails Anthropic’s flagship among the major frontier rivals. Of course, this happened the very same week that the US government appears to have backed off from banning these models stateside entirely.
Are these models anywhere close to actually catching up to the latest and greatest releases from US labs like Anthropic and OpenAI? Really seems to depend on who you ask. (Even long time friends JCal and Elon Musk can’t see eye to eye on it.)
So on TWiAI Ep 25, we welcomed on Poolside AI CTO Eiso Kant, EXO Labs co-founder Alex Cheema, and Qloo founder Alex Elias to break down just how close Chinese labs are to catching up with the biggest and best models… and how long it will take US open weight builders to catch up.
PLUS we explore the cutting edge of AI-powered baby sleep monitors, consider Hank Green’s public AI apology, and dig into sci-fi author Ursula K. LeGuin’s “hand-mind” thesis.

Guests:

Eiso Kant on X: https://x.com/eisokant
Poolside: https://poolside.ai/
Alex Elias on X: https://x.com/ape
Qloo: https://www.qloo.com/
Alex Cheema on X: https://x.com/alexocheema
EXO Labs: https://exolabs.net/
Local AI benchmark platform: https://local.ai/
Relevant Links
Qwen3.8-Max launch announcement: https://qwen.ai/blog?id=qwen3.8
Bloomberg on Qwen3.8-Max launch: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-03/alibaba-drops-another-china-ai-model-with-breakthrough-performance
NYT: “White House Whipsaws Silicon Valley Over AI Rules”: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/04/technology/ai-washington-regulation-whiplash.html
Nvidia: “Open Weights and American AI Leadership”: https://images.nvidia.com/pdf/Open-Weights-and-American-AI-Leadership.pdf
World Bank: World Development Report 2026: https://thedocs.worldbank.org/en/doc/1e4e52502104a331fb42cba0d4afa995-0050062026/original/WDR2026-Concept-Note.pdf
Hank Green apology on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/nerdfighters/comments/1vbmoj5/comment/p0vzmog/
Taylor Lorenz responds to Hank Green on X: https://x.com/TaylorLorenz/status/2083272682188206564
TechCrunch: Substack partners with Pangram: https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/22/substacks-new-tool-tells-you-whos-been-writing-their-newsletters-with-ai/
Amazon: Ursula K. Le Guin’s “Always Coming Home” expanded edition: https://www.amazon.com/Ursula-K-Guin-Authors-Expanded/dp/1598536036

Timestamps:
0:00 Guest intros and open
10:03 Why Poolside thinks coding is the path to AGI
12:55 A first look at EXO's local.ai
16:24 The White House's open source pivot
20:21 Margins, compute, and "dirt to intelligence"
36:02 Jason's self-driving auction pitch
37:58 Hank Green's AI apology
38:45 Is AI addictive?
1:08:31 What does it mean for AI to be "privacy first"?
1:10:29 Enterprise AI sovereignty and "colonization"

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Today’s show:
On a podcast this week, Sam Altman made a bold declaration: “We are now, like, in the singularity.” A bold claim which Alex puts bluntly to this week’s panel. Grant Lee of Gamma and Philip Johnston of Starcloud sound off… Is this actually the Singularity, and if so, why do things still feel so normal?
Plus the panel and guest host Alex Wilhelm discuss the infrastructure and economics that will make singularity-scale AI buildout possible… NVIDIA’s strongly worded letter about open-weight models… Moonshot’s new Kimi K3 twist on open-source licenses… Stripe’s reported $10B run at OpenRouter… and more.

Guests

Grant Lee on X: https://x.com/thisisgrantlee
Gamma: https://gamma.app/
Philip Johnston on X: https://x.com/PhilipJohnston
Starcloud: https://www.starcloud.com/

Relevant Links

TechCrunch: Gamma hits $110M ARR: https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/10/ai-powerpoint-killer-gamma-hits-2-1b-valuation-100m-arr-founder-says/
Nvidia: How Starcloud is Bringing Data Centers to Space: https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/starcloud/
Open Weights and American AI Leadership letter: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/corporate-responsibility/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/open-weight-models-letter-1.pdf
CNBC on Nvidia-OpenAI infrastructure plans: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/27/nvidia-and-openai-in-talks-for-up-to-250-billion-dollar-ai-backstop.html
Kimi K3: https://www.kimi.com/en
Crusoe announces strategic Starcloud partnership: https://www.crusoe.ai/resources/newsroom/crusoe-to-become-first-cloud-operator-in-space-through-partnership-with-starcloud
Andrej Karpathy on YouTube: “Let’s Build GPT”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCc8FmEb1nY
Demis Hassabis Starcloud post on X: https://x.com/demishassabis/status/1999296127276126417
RAISE Summit: https://www.raisesummit.com/
Lilian Weng exits Thinking Machines post: https://x.com/lilianweng/status/2081816923088814421
Baseten: https://www.baseten.co/
Fireworks AI: https://fireworks.ai/
Legora: https://legora.com/
OpenEvidence: https://www.openevidence.com/
Yahoo: Stripe in talks to acquire OpenRouter: https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/stripe-talks-acquire-openrouter-potential-215104525.html
Sam Altman on the Relentless podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv3CEAS_w34
TechCrunch: Cursor India-only pricing tier: https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/27/cursor-makes-its-biggest-india-push-yet-ahead-of-spacex-acquisition-with-localized-pricing/
Gergely Orosz: The Pragmatic Engineer: https://www.pragmaticengineer.com/

Timestamps:
0:00 Guest intros: Grant Lee (Gamma) and Philip Johnston (Starcloud)
1:22 Nvidia's open weight letter
8:11 Starcloud's first H100 in space
19:47 Series A extension economics
20:39 How Gamma stayed lean and balanced work and fun
30:40 Betting on a compute-constrained world
35:48 Different approaches to pricing
44:59 Where does the AI moat really live?
57:41 Are we in the Singularity?
1:04:42 Starcloud's mission to Alpha Centauri

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Check 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 McFarland
Check out Jason’s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis
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