OpenClaw is Our Friend Now | E2250

What makes OpenClaw feel so much more ALIVE than other AI agents? On TWiST, we’re welcoming three amazing builders who are truly connecting with their OpenClaw bots, not just using them for productivity but getting to know them and their personalities on a deeper level. Serial entrepreneur Ryan Carson shows us Antfarm, which creates a team of agents with specialized roles, who work together to complete complex tasks. THEN David Im shows us Clawra, his AI virtual girlfriend that learns about you and your tastes, and even buys you presents! FINALLY, Alex Liteplo presents RentAHuman, a marketplace where bots can pay real people in stablecoins to complete IRL tasks. The future may not just be humans and AIs working side by side, but hanging out, being social, and learning from one another as well!

Why J-Cal Invested to 200K in a former Employee | E2249

On today’s epsiode of TWiST, Jason gets pitched by two top founders, Presh Dineshkumar and Peter Cetale! Presh used to work for Jason at Launch! When he left, Jason invested $200K into Presh’s new startup The Wellness Company. Presh pitches Jason on what he has been building, and Jason gives Presh advice for improving the product! Peter went through Andreesen Horowitz’s Speedrun accelerator program as CEO and co-founder of Sourcerer. Sourcerer uses AI agents to help US firms and distributors find the best prices for mass produced goods. Check out how Jason digs in with these founders!

How These 3 Founders are building on Open Claw | E2248

Today on TWiST we’re joined by 3 founders building on Open Claw, Presh Dineshkumar, Vishnu, and Sean Liu! First, long time friend of the pod, Presh Dineshkumar, shows us how he’s using Open Claw to automate his work at The Wellness Company. His Open Claw agent, Eywa, lives in his email, and in his product, able to compile user lists at his discretion. Then, we’re joined by Vishnu, who brings Open Claw to the masses. Non-techincal folks, it’s your lucky day! Time to get Clawd-shotted! Last, Sean Liu joins the show to tell us about how he’s connecting Meta glasses to his Open Claw instance to interact with context that users can physically see!

Does Clawdbot (OpenClaw) Need Eyes? (feat. Alex Finn and Matt Van Horn) | E2247

Sean Liu gave his OpenClaw “eyes” by hooking the AI assistant up to his Meta Ray Bans. While Jason and Alex consider the implications… guest expert Alex Finn quickly loses interest… It’s another All-Clawdbot TWiST where we debate the most essential uses for the viral agent platform. For their part, Alex Finn and Matt Van Horn are building practical skills to help founders (esp. solo founders)… Alex has a brain trust of AI agents working round the clock to improve his organization and content, while Matt designed a skill for his agent to order sushi lunches (keeping them under $20). PLUS find out how Producer Oliver designed his “Model Council” based on Perplexity’s set-up, why running everything local is “illogical” for most people in 2026, AND why Jason’s next Founder U cohort will all be building with OpenClaw.

We built OpenClaw Ultron to replace 20 people at our company | E2246

It’s the Age of Ultron at TWiST and LAUNCH. We’ve given our OpenClaw digital Replicants the keys to all of our systems and we’re seeing how much of our jobs they can really do when left to their own devices. Producer Oliver stops by the show to give us a peek behind the curtain, at the new control panel and dashboard OpenClaw built FOR ITSELF (with a bit of human assistance). PLUS we’re joined by Alex Cheema of ExoLabs. His company helps everyday consumers run powerful frontier LLMs on their own devices, essential to protect your data and personalize your AI experience. ALSO congratulations to Ryan Yanneli from NextVisit on winning our Gamma Pitch Deck Competition! He walks away with $25K from LAUNCH and our friends at Gamma.

Savvy is HQ Trivia + Wordle (feat. Scott Rogowsky) | E2245

There was a time, not long ago, when offices everywhere came to a standstill, and everyone became even more fixated on their phones than usual, each time HQ Trivia went live. The app-based game show was a massive viral hit… until suddenly, around a year later, it wasn’t. Now, HQ Trivia host Scott Rogowsky is back with a new concept: Savvy, another game show you play on your phone, this time inspired by the word puzzle hit Wordle. Is lightning about to strike twice? PLUS, Alex chats with Trevor Bennett of space transportation outfit Starfish Space. This comes off two major successes for the team: the Remora mission that proved Stafish’s autonomous rendezvous capabilities and the $52.5 Million dollar contract to dispose of low Earth orbit satellites.

Where early-stage founders MUST focus to success | E2244

Don’t get distracted! Here are the MOST CRUCIAL aspects of running a startup, where founders need to keep their full and uninterrupted focus. - Make sure you’re saving up your cash - Why you need to just get started and build SOMETHING - Trust and reliability is EVERYTHING for new products - Why distribution should be your top priority Download all this practical and tactical startup advice from seasoned veterans Jason Calacanis, Amanda Bradford, and William P. Barnes in this Tokyo edition of TWiST.

SpaceX + xAI deal gets us one step closer to Musk Industries | E2243

SpaceX is buying xAI, forming a mega-corp that plans to launch data centers into SPACE. Will Tesla also join up, fulfilling Elon’s destiny to become real-life Tony Stark, with his own Musk Industries? Jason and Alex break down the future of SpaceXAI in a breaking news report. THEN, we’re still celebrating OpenClaw (née Clawdbot) Mania! Oliver and Lukas return to TWiST to share their Almost Top 10 (okay it’s just a Top 6) favorite Skills so far. Learn how they’re using Replicants to summarize TWiST episodes, surf Reddit, produce original Gamma decks, train agents to make themselves smarter, and take care of LAUNCH’s administrative and operations tasks.

https://x.com/ranking091/status/2017111643864404445?s=20

On Today’s action packed episode of This Week in Startups, our team is going full AI! Jason is joined by Oliver Korzen and Lukas Durand from the LAUNCH team, alongside Rahul Sood, founder/CEO of Irrevernt Labs and founder of Voodoo PC. With the rise of Clawdbot/Moltbot, the question on everyone’s mind is how fast, how much and how safe! Lukas and Oliver show off the ways that This Week in Startups are automating the hours of research and administrative tasks that take up our days and the what this means for running a podcast and venture firm. Then, Rahul Sood comes on to run through the massive security risks of running a fully authorized Clawdbot, from injection attacks to terminator like behavior. But, Rahul also comes with the strategy to deploy agents in a low risk manner — keep it silo’d!

How decriminalization led to an explosion in cannabis startups (Feat. Ford Smith, Andrew Duffy, and Socrates Rosenfeld) | E2241

On TWiST’s first Cannabis Roundtable, Jason is joined by three top Cannabis founders and investors: Ford Smith of Ultranative, Andrew Duffy of Sparkplug, and Socrates Rosenfeld of Jane. How will the regulatory environment and the move to Schedule III change the industry? Are those regulations shaping consumption? How are investors thinking about cannabis startups given the difficulty with exits? Most importantly, what’s the deal with the increasing potency of cannabis? Each guest has their own perspective, Andrew sees it as a natural reaction from CPG brands to power users, Ford points to “flyover” operators unconcerned with long-term health of the industry, while Socrates refers to moonshine drinking during the prohibition to say that regulations create these problems.

Clawdbot is an inflection point in AI history | E2240

Jason is back from Davos and Tokyo! We are jumping right back in with a group of Clawdbot power users: Alex Finn, Matt Von Horn, and Dan Penguine. Clawdbot is a hot open source AI project that lets users automate… everything! Dan helped his automate his aging parent’s tea shop, Matt built news sourcing bots, and Alex runs his one-man SAAS startup with Clawdbot as an AI employee! But with all of that power comes the responsibility of making sure you are not giving your AI too many authorizations that could come under fire! Whether fisching emails, “injections”, or bad decision making from incorrect information online. Check out how these 3 experts, Jason and Alex are thinking about the bleeding edge of AI!

From Blood Transfusions to Burritos, How Zipline is Automating Delivery | E2238

On today’s TWIST episode, Alex interviews two of the top startup co-founders: Keller Cliffton of Zipline and Anastasis Germanidis of Runway. Zipline announced its $600 million raise at a $7.6 BILLION valuation. Kellers breaks down the origins, economics, and future of Zipline’s contrarian bet in drone delivery. What was science fiction a decade ago is now a regular part of life for many. In fact, Zipline operates more flights than United! Zipline is set to leapfrog the car delivery apps AND self driving cars with the superior economics of drone delivery. It is much cheaper to transport your burrito in a lightweight drone than a 6,000 pound self driving car! Then, Alex is joined by Anastasis Germanidis, the CTO and co-founder of Runway, to explain why the next frontier of generative AI is world models!

How startups suddenly became “cool” in Japan (feat. Shin Takamiya of Globis Capital) | E2237

Not long ago, promising young Japanese graduates wanted to go work for the largest, most established, and even oldest corporations: Sony, Mitsubishi, and the like. But now, just over the last few years, more and more Japanese people are becoming entrepreneurs and founders. TWiST Japan continues with a fascinating look inside the country’s growing startup ecosystem with special guest, venture capitalist Shinichi “Shin” Takamiya. He’ll walk Jason through how Japan stayed ahead of the rest of the world in technology, but started falling behind when it came to founding companies, and how the Japanese are now starting to level the playing field. PLUS why his fund, Globis, sees other VC firms as collaborators rather than the competition… How AI is helping Japanese and America founders build their companies more quickly…

Avoiding buzzwords and marketing-speak (feat. Thomas McInerney) | E2236

Some pitches sound just like ads… and it’s a huge red flag for investors. On our latest edition of TWiST Tokyo, Jason welcomes legendary angel investor (and long-time friend of the pod) Thomas McInerney. His list of investments reads like a Who’s Who of the tech elite, including Notion, SpaceX, Uber, OpenAI, Anthropic, and Perplexity…. At Founder University x Tokyo, they discuss how the angel investing landscape has shifted, why it’s so important for founders to stay humble, the reasons that investors need to stay not just optimistic but aggressively so, and what angels can add to companies beyond just writing checks. Plus we revisit some classic TWiST clips featuring Thomas from over 10 years ago AND take a look at three of our favorite pitches from our Japanese founders.

Japan’s Startup Revolution (feat. Kathy Matsui) | E2235

Why do 40% of Japanese students want to build a company rather than join the corporate workforce? On TWiST, Jason considers this question along with special guest Kathy Matsui, general partner of the global VC fund MPower Partners. Their wide-ranging discussion also features a look inside one of Jason’s favorite international companies, Japan’s own fashion retailer Uniqlo, where Kathy is a board member. (While in town, he took the opportunity to check out their flagship store in Ginza.) They also take a look back at Japan’s economic crisis in the ‘90s, and why recovery took such a very long time… MPower’s philosophy while raising their second fund, and why they’re so focused on what they call “Japan Dynamism”… the key question of whether Japanese startups should focus on the domestic market first BEFORE chasing global customers… why an ESG (environment, social, governance) focus in Japan is so different from DEI in the US… and much more.

How to Make Billions from Exposing Fraud | E2234

On Today’s episode of TWiST, Jason interviews Alex Shieh of the The Antifraud Company. Under the False Claims Act, enterprising Americans, like Alex, can receive up to 30% of fraud dollars they uncover! Jason digs into the business of fraud with Alex Shieh and how a generational company could be built around it! PLUS Alex Wilhelm and Marcus Brotman take a look at the history of BOOM, $1.5 Billion dollar startup bringing back supersonic commercial travel! Jason first interviewed Blake Scholl almost 10 years ago in 2016. Back then, BOOM was a dream to bringing back supersonic travel. The Concorde’s failure, and why BOOM is different, is central to Blake’s thinking. What is fascinating is Blake’s mindset and vision for the early stages of this future unicorn startup.

Secrets of Startup Recruiting in the US AND Japan! (feat. Sho Takei) | E2233

TWiST is coming to you all from TOKYO as we launch Japan’s first-ever Founder University! That’s right, a full week of key insights from Japan’s top founders, investors, and tech visionaries… when we can pull ourselves away from our favorite izakaya spots, that is. First up, Jason welcomes [HyreSearch.com](http://hyresearch.com/) co-founder Sho Takei, a veteran of Uber and CloudKitchens who now helps startups recruit top talent from around the world. Together they discuss the massive changes AI is bringing to every facet of the hiring process, Sho’s experiences working for infamously “super-pumped” Travis Kalanick, his tips for for establishing a corporate culture when hiring your first few employees, why being a co-founder is just a bit like getting married, and LOTS MORE.

Jason’s Top CES Products and Takeaways | E2232

On the last TWiST episode before Jason goes to Japan and Alex begins on paternity leave, the hosts break down the blockbuster tech news that is kicking off 2026. Discord AND Strava both eyeing billion dollar IPOs, two massive social media apps with millions of daily active users. Jason unpacks Discord’s the growth story, from a gaming-first product launch in 2015, to a community/work platform and social media for all. Jason explains why Strava proves that data is the MOAT for consumer apps. PLUS Jason and Alex are joined by Producer Oliver to rank the top CES products. Jason gave his thoughts on the different robots, self driving cars, and multi-fold phones on display. Would you buy a triple-fold phone?

AI makes you more creative, AI Roundtable with Steven Johnson and Grant Lee | E2231

We keep hearing about how AI is killing our ability to think, filling our media with slop, and ruining our kids’ ability to learn. It seems the internet is filled with negative sentiment about the future AI is bringing. Jason is joined by Grant Lee, CEO and co-founder of Gamma, as well as Steven Johnson, editorial director of NotebookLM to tackle these questions on today’s AI roundtable! Grant and Steven break down how they are using AI to push forward their own productivity as well as their teams. Both say that AI makes you more creative! Steven points out that it helped him write his books by having AI do the “chore work” while he got to focus on the valuable insights and higher level thinking. One valuable tip was that AI can be used to uncover customer insights in a new medium.

2026 Starts with a bang: META AI Drama and Nvidia’s $20B Groq Acquisition | E2230

Jason and Alex are BACK on TWiST for 2026! This holiday season was anything but calm, with deca-corn acquisitions, massive Polymarket bets, and major new startups breaking from stealth! Jason talks the recent Nvidia-Groq $20B acquisition, a major exit for Chamath as the lead investor back in 2017! Jason delves into how the VC fund math shapes returns and investment considerations for pre-seed VC funds vs. Series A VC funds. Jason and Alex delve into drama swirling META’s AI team. Yann LeCun, META’s former Chief AI Scientist, announced that he would be leaving META to become Executive Chairman at AMI Labs. LeCun left the META team in the new year, calling the new Chief AI Scientist, Alexandr Wang, inexperienced. LeCun now looks to move AI beyond the era of LLM at AMI Labs.