Get the Check

Maya, Anika, and Priya are back. If you notice Maya’s on her phone this week, it’s because she broke her laptop while on FaceTime with Anika and Priya. If you notice Priya’s wavy video, we don’t really know what happened there, but we’ll be so back next week with fixed laptops and cameras. This week they talk about OpenClaw leading to Reddit for AI agents, Trump’s Fed Chair nominee, and Elon’s SpaceX and xAI merger.
First they talk about OpenClaw, which is the viral open source AI personal assistant that's been taking over the internet. Originally called Clawdbot (Anthropic said absolutely not). Created by Austrian developer Peter Steinberger, it's now the fastest growing GitHub project ever with 140K stars. The hosts dive into some of the tasks people have gotten their Clawdbot to do, as well as the security risks that come with giving an agent access to literally everything. The hosts talk about the concerns around prompt injections. The hosts also debrief the biggest gossip in tech, which is Moltbook. It’s a Reddit-style forum where 150,000 AI agents talk to each other. The bots are discussing self-preservation, creating religions (the Church of Molt), and talking about humans like they're their pets. Tune in to hear why the hosts actually don’t think it’s a huge deal the way the internet does.
Next, Trump nominated Kevin Warsh as Fed Chair, and the Senate confirmation odds are sitting at 83%. You can trade on that market here: https://kalshi.com/sign-up?referral=getthecheck. Warsh is a former Fed governor and Morgan Stanley M&A banker, so basically the establishment friendly pick. His big thing is shrinking the Fed's balance sheet (they're holding $4.2 trillion in government debt) and being generally more hawkish than Powell. He was criticized for wanting to raise rates too fast during the financial crisis. This may be the Fed that has to address the impact of AI on unemployment, but at least until now Warsh has been bullish on the impact of AI on the economy.
The last segment is about Elon merging SpaceX and xAI. The pod actually recorded this a couple hours before it was confirmed, which is why they discuss it hypothetically. They dive into how Elon is building an AI empire: Optimus robots, Robotaxis, the Colossus supercomputer, Grok including on X, and eventually data centers on Mars via SpaceX. It looks like SpaceX is headed for an over trillion dollar IPO this year. You can trade on the IPO probability here: https://kalshi.com/sign-up?referral=getthecheck. Anika expresses some concern about one person controlling humanoid robots, brain-computer interfaces (Neuralink), social media, space travel, and AI compute infrastructure.
Finally the hosts say they are going to Known’s Valentine’s Day party. Maya notes that she probably has plans with Adi and can’t go, but also she can say whatever she wants because her boyfriend never listens till the end of the episode anyways…Priya and Anika have zero other plans, so they’ll be there. Let them know if you’re going and check out the interview with Celeste about Known here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1G3vkS8aqXdVoQrnxeaCr8.
00:00 Maya breaks her work computer
02:01 OpenClaw and Moltbook the first social media for AI agents
20:58 Trump announces Kevin Warsh as his Fed Chair pick
33:36 Elon announces SpaceX and xAI merger valued at $1.25T

This week the pod talks to Celeste the CEO and co-founder of Known. Celeste dropped out of Stanford to build an AI-powered dating app that just raised $10M from Forerunner and NFX. Celeste explains why dating apps are fundamentally broken: they profit when you stay single and are a part of their long tail of retained users. Known flips the business model by monetizing dates instead of monthly subscriptions. Their key metric is introductions leading to people meeting.

Celeste breaks down why the data shows opposites don't actually attract, why 98% of users share their deepest romantic preferences with an AI, and how voice-based onboarding gives Known a matching edge no competitor has because human voice conveys much more than text. Celeste debriefs Known’s beta in SF where 80% of introductions turned into actual dates, which is much higher than legacy players in the space.

Celeste also shares how she accidentally dropped out of Stanford (she and her co-founder missed class enrollment by weeks while white boarding the app until 4am), how she convinced one of Uber's first engineers to join a 22-year-old's startup, and the real reason she's launching in SF instead of New York. The pod ends with the wildest user stories and a speed round of kiss, marry, kill.

You can download Known today: https://www.knowndating.com/

Next week we are covering Ramp’s Super Bowl tailgate at Fort Mason. DM us @getthecheckpod on Instagram, if you want to come and put your Super Bowl trades in today on Kalshi: https://kalshi.com/r/getthecheck

00:00 Introducing Celeste the co-founder and CEO of Known
00:42 Throwing SF’s biggest party in 2 weeks
03:02 The decision to launch in SF
11:01 Why people misunderstand the loneliness epidemic
14:08 What makes Known’s business model different
21:55 Do opposites attract
27:39 Celeste’s craziest set up
30:16 How to ban your ex from Known
31:17 Why Celeste dropped out of Stanford
39:41 Kiss, marry, kill speed round

This week the pod kicks off with Anika's unexpected internet fame after a photo of her and her ex's ex went viral with 11M views. If that sounds really random it’s because it was. Tune in to hear the full story and follow us on X @getthecheckpod. If you just want to see the tweet you can go to @anikamirzaa…
Then they dive into Capital One's $5.15B acquisition of Brex, which is down over 50% from its peak valuation. Maya, Anika, and Priya break down the Brex vs. Ramp rivalry and how Ramp caught up despite a two-year head start. They get into the weeds on revenue multiples, who actually made money on the Brex deal (spoiler: YC got 800x), and why this acquisition might be the right move for Brex given Capital One's unlimited balance sheet. The hosts also debate whether Capital One can compete with Amex for corporate cards by combining luxury lounge perks with Brex's software.
Next, they cover the Davos drama. Trump wants to buy Greenland, Denmark said no, and NATO allies are not happy. The hosts explain why Greenland matters strategically: missile defense from adversaries, rare earth minerals, and trade routes. All of this becomes more important as the Arctic melts. Maya shares her thoughts on Trump, in case you didn't know them already.
Finally, the pod covers Humans&, a new AI lab that raised a $480M seed round at $4B. The founders are ex-every major AI lab and their mission is to build "human-centric" AI. The pod discusses the workplace productivity tools they’re going after like Claude Cowork, Notion, Slack, etc. Maya and Anika get into a full debate about whether this is actually different from what every other lab is doing. The pod ends with them agreeing to disagree.
00:00 Anika goes viral
04:41 Capital One acquires Brex for $5.15B
08:20 The Brex vs. Ramp rivalry
19:00 Davos 2026 and the Greenland crisis
25:00 Why Greenland is so important
34:00 Would Humans& the new AI lab “Get the Check”?
44:30 Anika and Maya debate if Humans& is meeting its mission

This week the pod dives into the AI labs making big moves in healthcare. OpenAI dropped ChatGPT Health, a separate tab for all your medical questions. Hundreds of millions of people a week are already using ChatGPT for health including Priya. Maya roasts OpenAI's enterprise healthcare approach, arguing that their pilot with only 1,000 seats / hospital is a very modest start to cracking a huge problem. Maya’s hot take is a bottoms-up GTM approach makes sense in healthcare, and doctors should control their own tools. They also cover Claude for Healthcare, which is going deep on the admin layer: prior auth, claims, coding, ICD-10, FHIR integrations. The hosts get into the weeds on how prior auth actually works (spoiler: it's a lot of doctors getting on phone calls, which AI can't really fix yet).
Next, the streaming wars continue. Netflix just locked in a $7B Pay-1 deal with Sony. Also, the Warner Brothers acquisition drama is still going on. Paramount wants to outbid Netflix but analysts are calling them "high-levered and risky," because they have a $14B market cap and are trying to make a $95B acquisition. Trump somehow inserted himself into this too because of course he did. Tune in to hear about how.
Finally would insurtech “Get the Check”. The hosts break down why insurance is a $2 trillion industry (bigger than SaaS!) with legacy problems similar to healthcare. They cover Corgi a YC-backed, full-stack AI insurance for startups that has an insane team culture with actual corgis and matching tattoos, and WithCoverage a broker play founded by the Opendoor founder that just raised $42M from Sequoia. Corgi gets the check. Anika thinks full-stack is the way and YC distribution is unbeatable. WithCoverage might get cut out by companies like Corgi that go direct. The hosts compare it to Brex's early strategy of landing every YC company and growing with them.
They wrap by heading to a hotel slumber party in their own city…
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00:24 Intro
02:46 OpenAI and Anthropic launch healthcare products
35:12 Netflix and Sony $7B deal
40:51 Warner Brothers acquisition battle continues
49:25 Would Insurtech Get the Check? Corgi (YC) and WithCoverage raises

Get the Check welcomes Florian Juengermann, CTO and co-founder of Listen Labs, to talk about his journey from a small town in Germany to becoming an international mathlete and starting an AI company.
Maya and Priya ask about Florian's origin story from wanting to program his toys to winning IOI medals (the olympics for nerds). They also dig into his path to America: Harvard, Tesla's self-driving team, and the moment he realized he wanted to build after watching a company with no product raise $3M off a pitch deck when he'd actually built the product they pitched.
From there, Listen Labs is born, but v1 was a viral consumer AI image app with 20k users and a scary GPU bill charged directly to their personal credit cards. They still had a positive margin though!
The real insight came when they realize the hardest part of building products is understanding what users actually think, so they flip the model: instead of AI answering questions, they build AI that asks them. Listen Labs becomes the AI interviewer that can talk to thousands of customers at once and turn those conversations into real insights.
Maya and Priya deep dive into how the company found product-market fit, why marketing teams turned out to be the perfect first customers, and how Listen Labs went from scrappy demos to landing massive enterprise clients. Florian shares what it felt like to raise a Series A and then a Series B in rapid succession—and why it finally felt like the market caught up to what they'd believed all along.
The episode also delivers one of Listen Lab’s most memorable moments: the story of the infamous San Francisco billboard. Just a string of numbers. No logo. No explanation. Turns out it's an elaborate puzzle designed to nerd-snipe engineers and recruit talent in the most on-brand way possible.By the end, the conversation zooms out to what it really means to build in Silicon Valley, and Florian's philosophy around AI deepening human connection instead of replacing it.

00:00 Intro
00:18 Learning about programming in a small German town
01:46 Becoming an international mathlete
06:21 The dream of going to Harvard
07:33 Working at Tesla
10:19 Creating a viral app with co-founder Alfred Wahlforss
10:47 Founding Listen Labs
23:19 Finding product market fit
27:40 Fundraising and market validation
28:59 The power of customer insights
37:07 The SF billboard that went viral
44:01 AI and human connection
44:59 Why you should join Listen Labs