This Week in Startups

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Today’s show:
*Imagine scrolling through mobile games the way your flip through your TikTok feed. What if you could build your own game in 90 seconds and share it with the world? That’s what over 100,000 users are enjoying right now on Nanogram.
On TWiST, we meet the co-founders: 22-year-old CEO Albert Brotherton and 24-year-old CTO Boris Radilov. They demo the app for us on the air, and Jason immediately spies the potential. Power users are playing 25+ games per session already.
We’re digging into the co-founders future plans, including the potential for ads in your game feed, in this TWiST exclusive.
PLUS domestic helper bots are here. NEO from 1X Technologies can do the laundry, open the door for guests, and even read and understand Post-It Note messages.
Alex talks with CEO Bernt Børnich about building the safety-first 66-lb humanoid, why world models are so crucial for training robots in particular, and why homes are even tougher places for robots to navigate than factory floors.
Timestamps:0:59 Nanogram co-creators Albert and Boris join the show
3:42 Nanogram is TikTok for casual AI-generated games
4:27 Building Nanogram with Google Gemini
5:49 Draper and Associates: https://www.draper.vc
6:11 Integrating ads into the game feed
7:36 Roblox: https://www.roblox.com World of Warcraft: https://worldofwarcraft.blizzard.com
8:25 Building in New York
9:07 Jason is obsessed with the Staples Baddie https://www.tiktok.com/@blivxx
10:12 LinkedIn Jobs - Hire right, the first time. Post your first job and get $100 off towards your job post at https://LinkedIn.com/twist
20:36 Every.io - For all of your incorporation, banking, payroll, benefits, accounting, taxes or other back-office administration needs, visit https://every.io
21:40 1X CEO and founder Bernt Børnich joins the show https://x.com/BerntBornich
22:31 Designing robots to actually live around people
26:30 Teaching NEO about movement in the physical world
29:00 TechCrunch coverage: https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/13/neo-humanoid-maker-1x-releases-world-model-to-help-bots-learn-what-they-see/
29:58 Render: Find out why 5 million developers are already using the all-in-one cloud platform, Render. Go to https://render.com/twist and apply for the Render Startup Program to get $500-$100,000 in free credits, depending on your stage and backers.
31:04 Moving beyond training data to true general intelligence
33:17 Ensuring NEO pursues the safest possible path
34:19 Why are world models so important?
41:51 1X World Model Challenge on GitHub: https://github.com/1x-technologies/1xgpt
45:14 Robots need to train on a lot of data… Where does it all come from?
50:14 Manufacturing NEO from raw materials in San Carlos
56:32 Robots building robots
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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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This Week In Startups is made possible by:
Sentry - https://sentry.io/twist
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Today’s show:
*TAO just had its worst week since launch. One of Bittensor’s most prominent subnet operators allegedly dumped $10 million in tokens and walked away. We’re digging into what we know, how this could change the Bittensor community… and why dedicated builders still believe in this ecosystem.
Jason and Lon are joined by Stillcore Capital Partner Mark Jeffrey to break down the Covenant AI and Templar controversy in real time. Then they’re joined by three prominent subnet founders: Ken Miyachi of BitMind (Subnet 34) and Will Squires of Steffen Cruz of MacroCosmos (which owns Subnets 1, 9, and 13). Together, they’re investigating how Bittensor incentives work, how real products are still emerging from the TAO ecosystem, and what governance fixes could arise to prevent the next (alleged) rug pull.
Timestamps:
0:00 Mark Jeffrey joins the show! https://x.com/markjeffrey
2:18 How Mark Jeffrey learned about Bittensor. https://bittensor.com/
6:17 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!
7:22 Mark Jeffrey's Bittensor investments. https://stillcorecapital.com/
9:25 Check out our discussion with Nova: https://youtu.be/gjRt4eUyiYc?si=HopdmmSarxECark1
10:16 Sentry - New users can get $240 in free credits when they go to https://sentry.io/twist and use the code TWIST
10:41 Check out Ridges! https://www.ridges.ai/
11:53 How trading alpha tokens works on Bittensor
12:44 Subnet drama: what happened? https://x.com/covenant_ai/status/2042380152831951300
16:01 Do subnet owners have too much power?
18:33 Check out our conversation with Sam Dare (2268): https://youtu.be/TN2RmNuX4-k?si=c58Byh7Fsw1ttnAY
19:10 How Sam Dare should've handled walking away (per Mark Jeffrey)
20:02 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.
23:29 Who should subnets be owned by?
24:02 Ken Miyachi from BitMind joins the show https://x.com/kenmiyachi
30:56 Netsuite - Get the free business guide Demystifying AI at https://www.netsuite.com/twist
31:06 Ken's $3M raise & investors (Arch, Canonical, Mechanism)
33:18 Token vs. equity: how to think about a subnet investment.
41:57 Will Squires and Stefan Kruse of MacroCosmos join the show https://x.com/willsquires https://x.com/sczsteffencruz
56:29 Stefan on the Covenant drama: "disappointing, but solvable"
1:02:11 Off-duty with J-Cal, Mark Jeffrey, and Lon Harris
1:02:48 Bieber vs. Carpenter: does Coachella owe you a spectacle? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hp5O72WUqTk https://x.com/FashionXGirl_/status/2043251270509592936
1:15:20 Jason says Staples should pay the "Staples baddie" $1M/year https://www.tiktok.com/@blivxx
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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:
TAO, the token associated with the Bittensor network, fell sharply last night after a major project declared it was taking its business elsewhere. Covenant AI had used Bittensor subnets 3, 39, and 89 before its abrupt and controversial decision to depart for other digital shores.
Gareth Howells, a co-founder of Vidaio (Bittensor Subnet 85), joined Jason and Alex to share the community perspective regarding Covenant’s decision to leave Bittensor, a choice that was especially bitter given that its recently-released Covenant-72B model trained using the network’s decentralized capabilities was hailed at the time as a demonstration of the crypto-AI hybrid’s potential. (Covenant’s Sam Dare was a recent guest on TWiST.)
Howells walked us through Vidaio’s product (AI models for high-quality video work, like upscaling)
Then it was time to bring new fan-favorite Ole Lehmann on. Ole took an Andrej Karpathy concept, and turned it into a skill that you can use in either OpenClaw or Claude Cowork.

Guests
Ole Lehmann: https://x.com/itsolelehmann
The AI Solopreneur newsletter: https://aisolo.beehiiv.com/
Vidaio: https://vidaio.io/
Vidaio on X: https://x.com/vidaio_

Timestamps:
0:00 Drama in the Bittensor space! Was there a rugpull?
1:01 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!
1:47 Gareth Howells of subnet85 joins the show: https://x.com/GarethHowells
9:56 Northwest Registered Agent - Get more when you start your business with Northwest. In 10 clicks and 10 minutes, you can form your company and walk away with a real business identity — Learn more at https://northwestregisteredagent.com/TWIST
11:37 Gareth reacts to the Covenant situation… Did Sam sell tokens?
14:33 How VidAIo (subnet85) optimizes video as cheaply as possible. https://vidaio.io/
20:06 Squarespace - Use offer code TWIST to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain at https://squarespace.com/TWIST
21:12 Demo: Gareth shows upscaled footage of our very own Lon Harris
27:09 Who is actually doing the computing on Bittensor?
28:15 How Bittensor recruits tech talent from emerging markets
29:42 Pilot - Visit https://pilot.com/TWIST and get $1,200 off your first year.
30:58 Jason's explains the Bittensor network. https://docs.bittensor.com/
37:28 Jason addresses "pump and dump" allegations
40:46 Ole Lehmann joins the show https://x.com/itsolelehmann
45:31 Jason's $1,000 "bounty" for enhanced show notes
49:35 Check out Ole's newsletter at aisolo.beehiiv.com !
59:50 CrowdHealth - CrowdHealth lets you ditch the bureaucracy with a peer-to-peer funding platform for your healthcare. Get started for $99 per month for your first three months by using the code TWIST at https://JoinCrowdHealth.com/twist.
1:00:46 Off Duty with Alex and J-Cal!
1:04:46 Reacting to the Maul trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkVepshZhGc

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Anthropic just built a model so dangerous, they’re not even going to release it (for now). On TWiST, Jason, Alex, and Neurometric CEO Rob May discuss whether or not this is just another frontier model or a potential weapon of mass internet destruction.
Claude Mythos Preview is already in the hands of over 40 Anthropic partners — including Nvidia, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google — as part of its “Project Glasswing” security council.
Together, they’ll test how quickly and easily the model can thwart today’s most elite cybersecurity protocols, and try to develop fresh protocols to keep our most sensitive and critical software systems safe and intact. Once Mythos or a similarly powerful model hits the streets… it’s all over!
Plus, we’re checking out the real-time SaaSpocalypse monitor Death By Clawd, and chatting with its creator, Gyani, about how it feels to have your startup one-shotted by Anthropic’s latest model.
Guests
Rob May: https://x.com/robmay
Neurometric: https://www.neurometric.ai/
Neurometric SLM Marketplace: https://marketplace.neurometric.ai/
Death by Clawd: https://deathbyclawd.com/
Nick O’Neill: https://x.com/chooserich

This Week In Startups is made possible by:

LinkedIn Jobs - LinkedIn.com/twist

Grasshopper Bank - Grasshopper.bank/twist

Render - Render.com/twist
Plaud - https://Plaud.ai/twist
Today’s show:

Timestamps:
0:00 Anthropic's new, powerful 'Mythos' model
3:50 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!
5:26 Neurometric's Rob May joins the show
10:04 Sam Altman's talent exodus
10:50 Render - Go to https://render.com/twist to apply for the Render Startup Program. You'll get anywhere from $500 to $100,000 in free credits.
11:50 Has Anthropic Passed OpenAI?
15:44 When will Claude release Mythos? Polymarket: https://polymarket.com/event/claude-mythos-released-by
18:32 The AI race turns existential
19:16 Would Anthropic's model give the CIA the ability to hack a foreign government?
20:04 Grasshopper Bank - Time is money. Don't waste either. Go to https://grasshopper.bank/twist and get an exclusive $500 cash bonus just for opening an account.
21:19 Should AI be nationalized?
29:43 Subsidizing secret AI development.
30:15 LinkedIn Jobs - Hire right, the first time. Post your first job and get $100 off towards your job post at https://LinkedIn.com/twist
31:29 How much of the military's $1.5T will go to AI cybersecurity?
35:17 Nick O'Neill's "not sponsored" call-in.
38:24 What is an SLM?
42:01 Tactical/Practical: How can you tune SLMs
45:43 How Neurometric can afford 100M free tokens per month for its users?
49:04 What is "harness engineering"?
50:58 Tactical/ Practical: Every Reddit rant is a startup idea
1:00:25 Why Meta is the most un-innovative AI company in the world.
1:03:43 Gyani of Deathbclawd joins the show — Is your company COOKED?

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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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Anthropic just pulled the plug on Claude subscriptions for OpenClaw and every third party agentic tool. So Jason and Lon welcome back three of our top TWiST OpenClaw experts to break down what it means, how much it’s going to cost now, and whether this is truly the end of the subsidized AI era.
And they all brought demos! We’re checking out ClawChief from Ryan Carson, Alex Finn’s agent Henry, and Yazin Alirhayim’s Sidecast protocol, inspired by a special request from JCal!
Hosts
Jason Calacanis: http://x.com/jason
Lon Harris: https://x.com/lons
Guests
Ryan Carson: https://x.com/ryancarson
Clawchief: https://github.com/snarktank/clawchief
Alex Finn: https://x.com/AlexFinn
Creator Buddy: https://www.creatorbuddy.io/
Yazin Alirhayim: https://x.com/yazins
OpenOats / Sidecast: https://github.com/yazinsai/OpenOats
Further Reading
The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande: https://www.amazon.com/Checklist-Manifesto-How-Things-Right/dp/0312430000
Marc Andreessen on AI job loss: https://x.com/pmarca/status/2040919227641856307
OpenAI acquires TBPN: https://openai.com/index/openai-acquires-tbpn/
This Week In Startups is made possible by:
Gusto - https://Gusto.com/twist
Vanta - https://vanta.com/twist
Shopify - https://shopify.com/twist
Plaud - https://Plaud.ai/twist
Today’s show:
Timestamps:

0:00 Welcome back to TWiST
0:32 Jason's thinks Andor is as good as Empire Strikes Back…
2:30 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!
3:26 Check out the checklist manifesto! https://www.amazon.com/Checklist-Manifesto-How-Things-Right/dp/0312430000
6:36 Our guests Ryan Carson, Alex Finn, and Yazin Alirhayim, and join the show
10:28 Gusto - Check out the online payroll and benefits experts with software built specifically for small businesses and startups. Try Gusto today and get three months FREE at https://Gusto.com/twist.
10:46 People are automating their coworkers and getting them fired…
18:32 Anthropic Bans OpenClaw
20:06 Vanta - Get $1000 off your SOC 2 at https://www.vanta.com/twist
24:06 How "caveman talk" makes AI works better
27:31 Alex thinks $2000/ month subscription plans are inevitable for AI.
29:31 Why is nobody using the leaked Anthropic Model?
30:30 Shopify: Turn those What If's into sales with the ecommerce platform powering millions of businesses. Sign up for your $1-per-month trial today at https://shopify.com/twist
32:37 Open models have been 6 months behind for the past few years
35:53 Why did OpenAI acquire TBPN?
42:01 Tactical/ Practical: The product itself is the most important thing
44:31 Demo or Die! Yazin is back to show off OpenOats
55:05 Ryan's "Claw Chief" https://github.com/snarktank/clawchief/blob/main/skills/executive-assistant/SKILL.md?plain=1
1:02:14 Alex's big announcement, "Henry intelligent machines"
1:12:33 Alex Finn DESTROYS Higgsfield's marketing strategy
1:15:35 Throwback to "Pay Per Post"
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis
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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