This Week in Startups

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Today’s show:

Today’s college grads are showing up to work at Jason’s company unable to write three sentences. He’s asking what Shishir Mehrotra of Superhuman, the company behind Grammarly, can do to fix that.

Shishir delves into Superhuman’s reasons for acquiring GPTZero, the most popular AI detector, and the AI notetaker Fathom, and the spreadsheet startup Rows. Plus, how Shishir responds to accusations that Grammarly helps students cheat in the classroom, why writers should disclose when they’re collaborating with an LLM, and Jason's CEO wish list for fresh Grammarly features.

In the news, Tesla demoed its long-awaited Roadster, which used SpaceX thrusters to do some flips and propel itself over five other Teslas… And OpenAI warned staffers that spies may be trying to seduce them in order to steal company secrets… And the shutdown of Character AI prompts Jason to declare: “AI relationships are evil.”

Guests:

Shishir Mehrotra on X: https://x.com/shishirmehrotra Superhuman: https://superhuman.com

Relevant Links:

Rows, the spreadsheet startup Superhuman bought, announces the deal → https://rows.com/blog/post/rows-is-joining-superhuman

Superhuman to acquire GPTZero (Business Wire) → https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260623083788/en/Superhuman-to-Acquire-GPTZero-AI-Authenticity-Platform

Is the Internet AI, GPTZero's live tracker of AI content on Reddit, LinkedIn and X → https://istheinternetai.com

GPTZero AI Vision, the extension that flags AI posts as you browse → https://gptzero.me/ai-vision

Superhuman acquires YC-backed notetaker Fathom (TechCrunch) → https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/14/superhuman-acquires-yc-backed-notetaker-fathom-as-productivity-platforms-push-for-agentic-work/

Grammarly Authorship, which shows how much of your writing came from AI → https://www.grammarly.com/authorship

GPTZero Authorship and Writing Replay → https://gptzero.me/authorship

Stanley Druckenmiller says his WSJ op-ed was written with AI (NOTUS) → https://www.notus.org/media/stanley-druckenmillers-wsj-op-ed-bessent-ai

Superhuman Go, the AI assistant that works wherever you type → https://superhuman.com/go

Tesla reveals its new Roadster with SpaceX thrusters (TechCrunch) → https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/15/tesla-reveals-spacex-powered-roadster-that-flies-and-falls-with-style/

OpenAI employee arrested over a hidden listening device in an executive conference room (NBC News) → https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/openai-employee-arrested-hidden-listening-device-company-says-rcna603262

Eight states sue OpenAI over ChatGPT's alleged harm to kids (NBC News) → https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/openai-sued-eight-states-alleged-harm-chatgpt-rcna603614

Timestamps:

00:00:00 Intro

00:07:14 GPTZero and the fight over what's human

00:09:27 How much of Reddit, LinkedIn and X is AI

00:10:56 Fathom and the 90% of work that's spoken

00:12:05 Lightfield - Name one person who's ever enjoyed updating a CRM. Exactly. Lightfield's AI agent does it for you - it even prospects and books your meetings. Used by thousands of startups. Free at https://lightfield.app/

00:16:27 Why Jason says every employee should use Grammarly

00:18:04 How to test whether new hires can actually write

00:22:08 Every - For all of your incorporation, banking, payroll, benefits, accounting, taxes or other back-office administration needs, visit https://every.io/.

00:24:22 Grammarly Authorship and proving the work is yours

00:25:53 How accurate are AI detectors

00:30:36 Jason wants AI writing flagged by default

00:32:34 Enforcing Grammarly and Go across a whole team

00:36:45 PayPal - PayPal is built for all businesses. Get started at https://paypal.com/business

00:37:28 Assist, chat and do, three kinds of AI agents

00:41:06 Jason's feedback on the Grammarly keyboard

01:13:27 Tesla demos the Roadster on SpaceX thrusters

01:21:20 OpenAI engineer charged with bugging an executive conference room

01:21:43 Why OpenAI warned employees about foreign spies

01:27:57 Eight states sue OpenAI over harm to kids

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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:

Misha Laskin of Reflection AI joins Jason to explain why big companies are done renting their AI from closed labs. Enterprises want to keep their data, cut their costs, and tune their models to their unique businesses.

Reflection is launching its first open-weight model, Beam, just three months after acquiring its first big cluster. Misha admits that Beam trails the best Chinese open models by a couple of months, and needs 3 to 4 times fewer tokens to reach the same answer, but nonetheless, the race is on.

PLUS, Misha explains how “reward hacking” led that rogue OpenAI model to break out of its test sandbox and steal the answers from Hugging Face's servers. The model solved the problem, just not the way anyone intended.

There’s simply no way a few hundred safety researchers at closed labs can catch every flaw; open source is how software has always been made secure. It's also why he wants America to lead in open models again.

So how close is America to catching up to the Chinese open source leaders? Watch this brand new TWiST and find out.

Guests:

Misha Laskin on X: https://x.com/MishaLaskin

Reflection AI: https://reflection.ai/

Relevant Links:

Introducing Beam, Reflection's first open model (Reflection AI) → https://reflection.ai/blog/introducing-beam

Reflection AI unveils Beam as an open answer to Chinese labs (Semafor) → https://www.semafor.com/article/10/05/2026/reflection-ai-unveils-an-open-source-answer-to-chinese-labs

Cursor's Composer 2 coding model, built on an open model (VentureBeat) → https://venturebeat.com/technology/cursors-new-coding-model-composer-2-is-here-it-beats-claude-opus-4-6-but

micro1 passes $1 billion annual run rate, mentioned by Jason → https://www.einnews.com/pr_news/949082966/micro1-end-of-q3-update

Hackers heat French supermarket fridges, sparking fires and spoiling food (CNN) → https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/12/europe/france-supermarket-cyberattack-fridges-intl

Hugging Face postmortem on the OpenAI agent that broke out of its sandbox → https://huggingface.co/blog/agent-intrusion-technical-timeline

NVIDIA OpenShell, an open-source sandbox for AI agents → https://docs.nvidia.com/openshell/latest/about/overview.html

Timestamps:

00:00:00 Why companies are switching from renting AI to owning it

00:09:10 How Reflection sells the whole AI stack

00:10:24 Paper is the legal backbone for thousands of startup founders and fund managers - including Launch. Use getpaper.ai/twist to get your cap table free for a year - or two years if you're leaving Carta.

00:11:28 Who is moving AI onto their own servers

00:14:37 What it took to train Beam

00:20:26 Superhuman Go is an AI chat that's always there when you need it, already aware of what you're doing, and doesn't ask you to start from zero. Sign up to get the best in AI at https://superhuman.com/

00:21:29 How reinforcement learning tasks get built

00:26:41 Hackers heat French supermarket fridges

00:29:07 The AI that broke out of its sandbox to cheat

00:31:05 The all-in-one business platform. Your first app is free! Get started today at https://Odoo.com/twist

00:33:10 Why open source makes software safer

00:38:13 The encryption fight and Tim Cook's stand

00:42:53 Why China raced ahead in open models

00:47:35 How Beam stacks up against Chinese models

00:50:21 When American open models catch up

00:58:39 Staying independent

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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:

At packed concerts, festivals, and stadiums, your phone gets WORSE with every person who shows up. Totem gets better.

Carter Fowler of Totem joins Alex to explain how his screen-free compass points you straight to your friends without relying on cell towers. Find out why Carter says Apple will never ship this in an iPhone, and why kids, ski patrols, and blind users have become some of his most loyal fans.

PLUS, Lon and Alex dig into the archives for Jason's 2017 CES interview with Ring founder Jamie Siminoff, a year before Amazon bought the company. Jamie explains how a doorbell he couldn't hear in his garage became Ring, and why a strong mission is "cheating" when it comes to keeping a team focused. Then he tells Jason he wants to take Ring public, not sell it. Ironic because about a year later, Amazon bought it. And get ready for some hot takes on neighborhood license-plate cameras, years before the anti-Flock backlash.

Guests:

Carter Fowler on X: https://x.com/Carter_S_Fowler

Totem: https://totemlabs.com

Jamie Siminoff on X: https://x.com/JamieSiminoff

Ring: https://ring.com

Relevant Links:

Totem Compass, the offline friend-finding compass → https://totemlabs.com

Totem closes its $1.3M pre-seed round (Business Wire) → https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250212385814/en/Totem-Closes-%241.3M-in-Pre-Seed-Funding-to-Scale-Operations-for-Explosive-Demand

Totem's community crowdfunding round → https://wefunder.com/totemlabs

Totem's record Lost Lands deployment last year (Business Wire) → https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251009622355/en

The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton Christensen, mentioned by Alex → https://www.amazon.com/dp/1633691780

Original TWiST Interview with Jamie from 2017 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puP_D3k7vVI

Amazon officially closes its Ring acquisition in 2018 (TechCrunch) → https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/12/amazon-officially-owns-ring-so-lets-talk-product-integration/

Ring calls off its Flock Safety partnership after the Super Bowl ad backlash (Engadget) → https://engadget.com/home/ring-calls-off-partnership-with-police-surveillance-provider-flock-safety-031717605.html

Flock Safety plans to cut about 18% of its staff (Reuters via The Star) → https://www.thestar.com.my/tech/tech-news/2026/10/09/exclusive-ai-surveillance-startup-flock-safety-to-cut-several-hundred-jobs-amid-backlash-sources-say

Timestamps:

00:00:00 Totem, an offline compass for finding friends at festivals

00:00:31 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations - interviews, meetings, calls - you need a Plaud NotePin S. You can check it out at https://Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!

00:04:27 Why phones fail in big crowds

00:06:42 How more devices make the mesh network stronger

00:09:07 Why Totem beats phone GPS in a crowd

00:11:40 Got a new business idea? Northwest Registered Agent helps you bring it to life. Get a free domain, email, phone number, and more - with no purchase required! - Learn more at https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twistdomain

00:13:34 Why Apple won't build this into the iPhone

00:18:10 Raising money for hardware in an AI world

00:22:10 NetSuite: For the first time ever, you can try NetSuite Next for free. If your revenues are at least in the seven figures, go to https://netsuite.ai/twist

00:23:08 Turning crowd movement into a predictive model

00:28:04 Rentals, kids and accessibility use cases

00:32:22 The Conservation Fund: Find out more about how The Conservation Fund is protecting land, wildlife, and our shared access to the great outdoors while also providing economic opportunities. Visit https://conservationfund.org.

00:35:47 Mesh networks on the front lines in Ukraine

00:38:01 Flashback to Jason and Ring's Jamie Siminoff at CES 2017

00:41:44 Roasting Jamie's earlier startups

00:48:26 How a doorbell in the garage became Ring

00:53:34 Why you should always bet on your friends

01:02:21 Why a strong mission is cheating

01:07:45 Selling to Amazon versus going public

01:12:09 License plate readers and the Flock backlash

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Today’s show:

AssetHub built an AI agent that recreates licensed characters in 3D while respecting copyright rules... But Jason says he needs to think BIGGER. 11 founders pitched their companies to Jason and Yuki Shirato of Techstars Tokyo at our Osaka event this week, and neither investor held back.

Find out why Jason says Seekr feels more like a vitamin than a painkiller, and needs to ditch the press mentions from their deck. Plus, a vital lesson for founders: if everyone already knows about the problem you're solving, investors expect a tight solution and business plan. Truly novel business ideas get more leeway. Japan's startup community is booming, with many recent grads bailing on lifelong gigs at major corporations to start companies. But here's why Yuki says the fear of failure is still holding back progress.

Guests:

Yuki Shirato on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yuki-shirato

Techstars Tokyo: https://www.techstars.com/accelerators/tokyo

Founder Pitches:

Seekr: https://seekrai.global/product

Arabat: https://arabat.it/

AssetHub: https://assethub.io/

CRAZIA: https://crazia.co/

JuJuJuu: https://jujujuu.com/

JAPANMEDIA: https://lp.japanmedia.ai/

Tsuin AI: https://www.tsuin.ai

Rumi Light: https://www.rumilight.jp/

GENCHI: https://www.toraru.me/en

TattvaSilicon: https://tattvasilicon.com/

Mimi AI: https://nihongo-chat-ruby.vercel.app/onboarding

Relevant Links:

Founder University Japan, Jason's pre-accelerator program with JETRO → https://japan.founder.university/

Techstars Tokyo announces its Class of 2026 → https://www.techstars.com/newsroom/techstars-tokyo-accelerator-announces-class-of-2026

Yuki Shirato on why Japan should be on every founder's radar (Techstars) → https://www.techstars.com/blog/insights-and-trends/should-japan-be-on-your-radar-as-a-founder

How Techstars Tokyo is helping make Japan a global startup hub (The Japan Times) → https://www.japantimes.co.jp/2025/12/25/special-supplements/accelerating-business-ambitions-global-scale-techstars-tokyo/

VidiLabs, maker of the Seekr indoor positioning platform → https://seekrai.global/

Density, the people-counting sensor company Jason has backed for a decade → https://www.density.io

Arabat, recovering critical minerals from batteries with citrus and farm waste → https://arabat.it/

AssetHub raises a $2M seed for its AI 3D platform (The Bridge) → https://thebridge.jp/en/2025/08/aix3d-production-platform-assethub-raises-approximately-¥300-million-in-seed-funding

Seedance 2.0, the ByteDance AI video model Jason says fans are using to make Marvel shorts → https://seed.bytedance.com/en/blog/seedance-2-0-official-launch

Bending Spoons, the company Jason cites for buying apps and running them with tiny AI-powered teams (TechCrunch) → https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/31/what-is-bending-spoons-everything-to-know-about-aols-acquirer/

Burning Chrome by William Gibson, the source of “the street finds its own uses for things” → https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ICMWZH4/

Timestamps:

00:00:00 Jason's first trip to Japan and the food crawl

00:03:07 Why everyone in Japan acts like a founder

00:03:42 Founder University comes to Japan

00:08:44 Techstars Tokyo and Japan's push for global founders

00:10:28 Why Japanese startups stay on the island

00:12:44 Parents, lifetime jobs, and the fear of failure

00:15:13 How Japan mastered product market fit

00:18:43 Lightfield: Name one person who's ever enjoyed updating a CRM. Exactly. Lightfield's AI agent does it for you - it even prospects and books your meetings. Used by thousands of startups. Free at https://lightfield.app

00:20:10 The white lab coat and the man who named his daughter Cinnamon

00:25:05 Seekr: centimeter-precise indoor navigation

00:27:38 Why investors want the business case, not the press

00:28:21 Rippling: Thanks to our partners at Rippling! Head to https://Rippling.ai/twist and get the only AI built to give you full visibility across your startup and take complex actions across your entire business.

00:34:54 Arabat: recovering rare earths with orange peels

00:38:26 Getting from free pilots to paid pilots

00:38:38 Upwork: Upwork helps businesses find highly skilled freelance professionals for specialized work. Post your job for free at https://upwork.com

00:43:57 AssetHub: AI 3D models for anime and game IP

00:52:40 Come for the tool, stay for the marketplace

00:54:35 CRAZIA: turning customer conversations into growth

00:56:42 JuJuJuu: giving alternative protein the structure of steak

00:59:02 JAPANMEDIA: AI manga and anime at a fifth of the cost

01:01:24 Tsuin AI: AI twins that think and act like you

01:03:15 Picking the layup and the wild card

01:09:29 Rumi Light: faster data paths inside AI servers

01:11:40 GENCHI: a local avatar that shops Japan for you

01:13:51 TattvaSilicon: analog circuit design in a day

01:15:36 Mimi AI: learning to actually speak Japanese

01:17:51 Why a live shopping avatar is Jason's wild card

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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 makes the same move.

Plus we’re also talking about OpenAI’s math breakthroughs, the Factory vs. Cognition fight, and whether SaaS is still worth funding. Catch the whole debate on this week’s VC roundtable.

Guests:

Deedy Das on X: https://x.com/deedydas

Menlo Ventures: https://menlovc.com

Kanu Gulati on X: https://x.com/KanuGulati

Khosla Ventures: https://www.khoslaventures.com

Chris Farmer on X: https://x.com/chriswfarmer

SignalFire: https://www.signalfire.com

Sheel Mohnot on X: https://x.com/pitdesi

Better Tomorrow Ventures: https://www.btv.vc

Relevant Links:

OpenAI’s 722 math manuscripts from an unreleased internal model → https://github.com/openai/math

OpenAI’s earlier Navier–Stokes Millennium Prize result → https://openai.com/index/navier-stokes-solution/

Pramaana Labs, the Khosla-backed startup turning tax rules into provable logic → https://pramaanalabs.ai

Logos Research, the Imperial College spinout verifying AI-written financial code → https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/articles/2026/logos-research-plans-to-make-ai-reasoning-trustworthy-in-high-stakes-environments/

EvenUp, SignalFire’s AI company for personal injury law → https://www.evenuplaw.com/

WindBorne Systems, the Khosla-backed weather balloon company Kanu mentioned → https://windbornesystems.com

Gokul Rajaram’s X Post: https://x.com/gokulr/status/2107851356019290569?s=20

micro1, the AI training data company Chris and LAUNCH backs → https://www.micro1.ai

Vercel’s data on companies shifting to open-weight models → https://vercel.com/i/open-weight-models

Instinct raises $1B at a $10B valuation (SiliconANGLE) → https://siliconangle.com/2026/09/28/everyday-personal-ai-assistant-startup-instinct-raises-1b-at-10b-valuation/

Meta introduces Muse, its personal AI agent → https://about.fb.com/news/2026/09/introducing-muse-personal-ai-agent/

Wajo, maker of the Fo agent Kanu uses → https://wajo.ai

Factory’s CEO accuses his board adviser of spying for Cognition (TechCrunch) → https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/30/factory-ceo-just-accused-his-vc-board-advisor-of-spying-for-cognition/

xAI rents its Colossus 1 data center to Anthropic (Data Center Dynamics) → https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/musk-spacex-xai-is-actively-seeking-more-ai-compute-customers-following-anthropic-deal/

Bending Spoons agrees to buy Miro, weeks after Airtable → https://investors.bendingspoons.com/newsroom/bending-spoons-agrees-to-acquire-miro

The FCC’s new rule on foreign-made robots → https://www.fcc.gov/covered-list-faqs-robots-inverters

Timestamps:

00:00:00 VC roundtable with guest host Deedy Das

00:01:23 If your work depends on conversations - interviews, meetings, calls - you need a Plaud NotePin S. You can check it out at https://plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!

00:02:11 OpenAI's math results and what's left to invest in

00:05:10 Formalizing taxes and code so AI can prove its work

00:06:37 Why science breakthroughs still need the real world

00:09:44 Odoo: The all-in-one business platform. Your first app is free! Get started today at https://Odoo.com/twist

00:10:54 Can startups compete with the labs on compute?

00:13:02 Private data and vertical AI as the moat

00:18:54 Would you invest in AI training data companies?

00:20:34 Got a new business idea? Northwest Registered Agent helps you bring it to life. Get a free domain, email, phone number, and more - with no purchase required! - Learn more at www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twistdomain

00:26:29 What a great founder looks like in the AI era

00:29:13 Quo (formerly OpenPhone) gives you a clean, modern way to handle every customer call, text, and thread all in one place. Try it free at https://quo.com/TWiST

00:34:35 Is Instinct worth $10 billion?

00:41:31 Can Muse reach a billion daily users?

00:44:49 Favorite personal agent use cases

00:49:06 What happens when everyone's agent makes the same call

00:53:17 Factory vs. Cognition and VCs backing rivals

01:03:49 Is SaaS still worth venture money?

01:09:49 Where the panel gets its information

01:14:45 What a seed fund means in 2026

Subscribe to our newsletters on Substack:

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TWiVC: https://thisweekinvc.substack.com/

Subscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcp

Follow Lon:

X: https://x.com/lons

Follow Jason:

X: https://twitter.com/Jason

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis

Thank you to our partners:

Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/