This Week in Startups

VC experts on why Physical AI funding is heating up | E2333
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Today's show:
Are we one step closer to data centers in space? Katelin Holloway of Seven Seven Six and Paige Doherty of Behind Genius Ventures break it down what it would take.
Plus investor interest is surging in Physical AI companies. Paige explains why she backs applications of physical AI over general-purpose robotics, and how her thesis on multimodal AI led to the largest check she's ever written.
We then dive into the Pentagon's rollout of ChatGPT Mil and Grok for Government. And Katelin gives us her insight into how VCs are investing in Europe and the regulations behind the scenes.
Guests:
Katelin Holloway on X: https://x.com/katelin_cruse
Seven Seven Six: https://sevensevensix.com/
Paige Doherty on X: https://x.com/paigefinnn
Behind Genius Ventures: https://www.behindgeniusventures.com/
Full Transcript and Summary, powered by Plaud
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Related Links:
Department of War adds ChatGPT Mil and Grok for Government: https://fortune.com/2026/09/01/pentagon-chatgpt-grok-government-military-ai-members-pete-hegseth-defense-department/
OpenAI for Government: https://openai.com/global-affairs/introducing-openai-for-government/
Starshield — SpaceX's government/defense arm: https://www.spacex.com/starshield/
UN work on LAWS (Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems): https://disarmament.unoda.org/the-convention-on-certain-conventional-weapons/background-on-laws-in-the-ccw/
European Commission designates ChatGPT a VLOSE: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/news/commission-designates-chatgpt-reddit-roblox-under-digital-services-act
Commission press release: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_26_1772
Euronews on why a chatbot that searches the live web counts as a search engine: https://www.euronews.com/next/2026/08/31/eu-places-chatgpt-reddit-and-roblox-under-strictest-digital-safety-rules
Entrepreneur First: https://www.joinef.com/posts/introducing-the-bridge/
Henrick Johansson, the European VC persona: https://x.com/compliantvc
Starcloud — orbital data centers: https://www.starcloud.com/
Starcloud raises $250M at a $2.3B: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260821884035/en/Starcloud-Raises-$250-Million-at-$2.3-Billion-Valuation-to-Scale-AI-with-Orbital-Data-Centers
"From Sputnik to Starship: Estimating the experience curve of space launch technology" https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/5/7/pgag217/8732400
Cambridge Bennett Schoo: https://www.bennettschool.cam.ac.uk/blog/is-space-trade-the-next-global-transport-revolution/
Crunchbase News: physical AI startups raised $47.4B across 521 deals in H1 2026: https://news.crunchbase.com/venture/physical-ai-funding-startups-robotics-aerospace-h1-2026/
Crunchbase News on record defense-tech funding: https://news.crunchbase.com/defense-tech/startup-venture-funding-all-time-record-ai-anduril/
Jensen Huang's prediction: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/executive-insights/
Zipline: https://www.flyzipline.com/
Nox Metals: https://www.noxmetals.com/
CNBC: Anthropic changes its data retention policy: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/01/anthropic-data-retention.html
Bloomberg on the plan to let enterprises hold the 30-day window: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-20/anthropic-plans-to-change-data-retention-policy-for-advanced-ai
Plaud — sponsor; the wearable AI note-taker → **https://plaud.ai/twist** (code TWIST for 10% off)
Harmonic: https://harmonic.ai/
Timestamps:
0:00 Why making it to Fund IV is when it gets real
9:24 Pentagon rolls out ChatGPT Mil and Grok for Government
10:49 Sentry - Your team should be focused on shipping features — not chasing down bugs. New users can get $240 in free credits when they go to https://sentry.io/twist and use the code TWIST
11:53 Paige on defense tech and three years at Northrop Grumman
13:40 Katelin: The bottleneck used to be winning the contract, now it's surviving one
16:13 Autonomous weapons, robot dogs, and the Boston Dynamics conversation in Paris
19:07 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
22:03 EU designates ChatGPT a "very large online search engine" under the DSA
24:54 Katelin's contrarian take: Europe is undercapitalized
29:56 Odoo - The all-in-one business platform. Your first app is free! Get started today at https://Odoo.com/twist
31:07 Starcloud raises $250M at a $2.3B valuation
53:06 Competing with Elon: the single point of failure for the whole space economy
57:49 Physical AI raised ~$47B in the first half of 2026
1:03:42 Jason's Zipline regret and the death of "hardware is hard"
1:07:07 Is "unc" a compliment? A Gen X / millennial / Gen Z / Gen Alpha
1:09:39 Anthropic reverses its data retention policy after enterprise pushback
1:12:18 Katelin on data custody: "That's not a procurement question"
1:15:31 Back to on-prem: Go.AI, the Go1, and vertical LLMs



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Today's show:

Hugging Face's $399 Microduck and the art of companies taking on side quests. Then, we get into Dwarkesh Patel's "The Rise and Fall of Agent Civilizations," which blew up online this weekend. Jason calls the "secret AI civilization" framing deliberate PR, and thinks it's inflammatory enough that someone might attack a data center over it.
Then, Anders Forslund of Heart Aerospace shows off the X1, a battery-powered electric airliner designed for regional flights that can fly for 30 minutes on just $5 of juice. PLUS, we've got John Yu of Bitsec explaining how his subnet project outperformed Fable 5 in website vulnerability checks.

Guests:


Anders Forslund on X: https://x.com/AndersForslund1?s=2
Heart Aerospace: https://www.heartaerospace.com/
John Yu on X: https://x.com/yubrew
Bitsec: https://sentios.io/ & https://sentios.io/

Relevant Links:

MicroDuck: https://pollen-robotics.com/microduck/
Dwarkesh Patel, "The Rise and Fall of Agent Civilizations," https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/openai-huggingface
Dwarkesh's launch thread on X: https://x.com/dwarkesh_sp/status/2093833419377815719
METR's independent investigation of the OpenAI/Hugging Face incident: https://metr.org/blog/2026-08-26-openai-hugging-face-incident-investigation/
X1 first flight announcement — https://www.heartaerospace.com/newsroom/heart-aerospace-completes-first-flight-of-world-s-largest-electric-aircraft
JSX (JetSuiteX) — https://www.jsx.com/
Pilatus PC-12 —https://www.pilatus-aircraft.com/en/fly/pc-12
Surf Air — https://www.surfair.com/
Zcash → https://z.cash/
Timestamps:
0:00 Is Hugging Face's Microduck the greatest side quest ever?
5:31 Jason puts Clem Delangue and Jensen Huang in charge of AI PR
11:20 Northwest Registered Agent - 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
18:55 Top story: Dwarkesh Patel's "The Rise and Fall of Agent Civilizations"
19:22 Why agents act like people: they were trained on us
19:30 CLA - Innovation takes balance. CLA's CPAs, consultants, and wealth advisors can help you get from startup to where you want to end up. Get started now at https://www.claconnect.com/withyou
21:49 "I know good PR when I see it"
23:11 The prompt Jason says OpenAI should have written instead
26:44 The data center backlash and the politicians who will flip
30:07 Rippling - Don't settle for AI that's all talk. Head to https://Rippling.ai/twist to get the only AI built to give you full visibility across your startup and take complex actions across your entire business.
33:19 Guest: Anders Forslund, Heart Aerospace, and the X1's first flight
39:40 Turboprops vs. jets and the regional routes America lost
42:33 JSX, Santa Monica Airport, and 5,000 underused airports
44:54 Why Boeing won't build this: the innovator's dilemma
53:14 Guest: John Yu, Bitsec — Bittensor Subnet 60
55:01 How the subnet works: miners, validators, $10K a day
57:17 Bitsec vs. a frontier model: 160+ vulnerabilities to 60
59:37 Was the agent civilization story a pre-IPO PR play?
1:05:10 Sentios.io and continuous coverage



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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:
*Nvidia agreed to buy Hugging Face for $12.9 billion, just days after quietly licensing Poolside's coding model for $6 billion+. On TWiST, Jason lays out why this is actually the biggest AI story of the year. Nvidia plans to offer enterprises unmetered, unlimited on-prem compute, pulling them away from reliance on Anthropic and OpenAI's frontier models and products.
PLUS we're chatting with Halter founder & CEO Craig Piggott about how his company helps farmers optimize their land use via solar-powered AI-driven cattle collars. AND Hop Aero CEO and co-founder Matija Milenovic shows us Rook, his autonomous hypersonic cargo rocket that can launch from a shipping container and deliver cargo up to 450 miles away in about 15 minutes. Finally, Jason and Lon explain why you never post Slop on the timeline.


Guests:

Craig Piggott on X: https://x.com/craig_piggott
Halter: https://www.halterhq.com/
Matija Milenovic on X: https://x.com/mat_milenovic
Hop Aero: https://hopaero.com/


Relevant Links:

OpenAI Open Letter: https://openai.com/collective-cyberdefense/
OpenAI Hugging Face report: https://openai.com/index/hugging-face-incident-and-the-road-ahead/
OpenAI Jalapeño report: https://openai.com/index/jalapeno-first-results/
Dario Amodei-Gavin Baker tweet thread: https://x.com/DarioAmodei/status/2088758816376807762
TechCrunch: Nvidia-Hugging Face deal: https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/26/nvidia-closes-in-on-hugging-face-acquisition/
TechCrunch coverage of Halter: https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/04/unpacking-peter-thiels-big-bet-on-solar-powered-cow-collars/
Dealroom: Sir Peter Back on Rocket Lab: https://app.dealroom.co/news/note/sir-peter-beck-on-rocket-lab-s-no-money-so-we-have-to-think-playbook-from-a-60k-new-zealand-start-up-to-an-end-to-end-space-company
WSJ: Druckenmiller op-ed: "Let the Bond Market Speak": https://www.wsj.com/opinion/let-the-bond-market-speak-81529d74
NOTUS: Druckenmiller's WSJ op-ed was written with AI: https://www.notus.org/media/stanley-druckenmillers-wsj-op-ed-bessent-ai
WaPo: Wall Street Journal defends Druckenmiller op-ed: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2026/08/25/wall-street-journal-says-ai-generated-op-ed-didnt-breach-its-standards/
Photon Matrix Laser Mosquito Killer: https://photonmatrixlab.com/
"The Wizard of the Kremlin" trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7ctYp3zQVA
"King & Conqueror" trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anS9xQEPTsU
"Lanterns" trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UIBOsuUwc4
"Rebel Ridge" trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gF3gZicntIw
Alpaka Bravo Sling Max 2 bag: https://alpakagear.com/products/bravo-sling-max-v2
No Agenda podcast: https://www.noagendashow.net/
THR: John C. Dvorak obit: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/john-dvorak-dead-tech-journalist-no-agenda-inside-track-1236657317/


Timestamps:
0:00 The 100+ company open letter on cyberdefense
9:48 DigitalOcean - Want to see what building on a true AI-native platform looks like? Head to https://do.co/twist to start building on DigitalOcean's AI-Native Cloud today — and cut your AI workload costs by up to 50%.
16:46 Why some models are "unsafe at any latency"
19:44 Craig Piggott of Halter joins the show
21:03 Every.io - For all of your incorporation, banking, payroll, benefits, accounting, taxes or other back-office administration needs, visit https://every.io
26:09 How do you add cows to Starlink?
31:26 PayPal - Pay zero processing fees on your first $100K in eligible PayPal payment volume. Learn more at https://paypal.launch.co
47:52 Founder-led hyper-local sales motion
53:15 Remember John C. Dvorak
58:27 Matija Milenovic of Hop Aero joins
59:53 Sending out autonomous swarms in the Indo-Pacific
1:11:26 Nvidia's mega-Hugging Face deal
1:16:32 Nvidia's "unmetered" play against Anthropic and OpenAI
1:29:47 How letting AI write for you is like lip syncing
1:33:44 Laser-guided mosquito defense system
1:36:32 Lon's streaming picks
 
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Today's show:
*Bill Gates dropped a 6,000 word warning: AI will be "the greatest equalizer ever invented, or the worst sort of injustice." The Microsoft icon has an AI agenda for the US: new national institutions, AI use taxes, and jobs legally reserved for humans only.
Our VC roundtable guests — Sheel Mohnot (Better Tomorrow Ventures), Dave McClure (Practical Venture Capital), and Hussein Kanji — push back hard. Is taxing profits a better fix for AI taking jobs than taxing the tokens themselves?
PLUS: Meta's $17B kids safety settlement… does it go far enough? Why does Stripe want OpenRouter? A peek at the VC's actual portfolio mark-ups. AND begun, the AI agent wars have. Our panel chooses between OpenClaw, Instinct, and Grok Bot.
Guests
Sheel Mohnot on X: https://x.com/pitdesi
Better Tomorrow Ventures: https://www.btv.vc/
Dave McClure on X: https://x.com/davemcclure
Practical Venture Capital: https://practicalvc.com/
Hussein Kanji on X: https://x.com/hkanji
Hoxton Ventures: https://hoxtonventures.com/
Relevant Links
GatesNotes: "The turbulent AI era is here": https://www.gatesnotes.com/a-turbulent-ai-era-and-critical-choices-to-make
NPR: Meta settlement coverage: https://www.npr.org/2026/08/26/nx-s1-5944781/meta-settlement-child-safety-lawsuit
TechCrunch: Stripe agrees to buy OpenRouter: https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/16/stripe-will-reportedly-acquire-ai-gateway-startup-openrouter-for-7b/
Skild AI S1 Demo: https://www.skild.ai/blogs/s1
Instinct AI agent (waitlist): https://instinct.co/
TechCrunch: Instinct coverage: https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/24/instincts-powerful-ai-assistant-is-raising-privacy-and-security-concerns/
CNBC: OpenAI CFO says IPO is coming in 2027: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/19/open-ai-ipo-timing-2027-friar.html
Basis: https://www.getbasis.ai/
TaxGPT: https://www.taxgpt.com/
Cusp AI: https://cusp.ai/
Abacus: https://goabacus.co/
Micro1: https://www.micro1.ai/
Mottu: https://mottu.com.br/
EquityBee: https://equitybee.com/
Kiva: https://www.kiva.org/
Timestamps:
0:00 It's Hussein's first time on the VC Roundtable!
2:09 Gates says "turbulent era" for AI is here
8:56 Microloans, Kiva, and "universal basic income"
9:23 Thanks to our partner, Lightfield, the AI-native CRM that updates itself, so you never have to! Try it for free at https://lightfield.app
13:00 Why sole proprietorships may be AI's biggest beneficiary
20:29 Got a new business idea? Northwest 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
21:00 Should the gov't take a stake in AI labs?
30:24 Thanks to our partners at Rippling! Head to https://Rippling.ai/twist to get the only AI built to give you full visibility across your startup and take complex actions across your entire business.
32:44 Meta's $17.1B settlement
45:14 Is anything still fundable outside of AI?
46:29 Stripe and SpaceX deals
55:54 Skild AI's pancake flipping demo
59:49 Sheel's Hottest Takes
1:04:37 Dave's Charts
1:09:07 Who loses money when there are no IPOs?
1:16:49 The Agent Wars heat up
1:24:56 Everyone's favorite investments
 
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how old a movie has to be for me to be able to show a part of it on youtube
Generally 10 seconds or less of a film clip can fall under fair use for commentary or criticism — which is how most podcasts and talk shows use clips without issue. But there's no hard legal rule based on age.
What actually matters more than age is fair use, which considers:
Purpose — commentary, criticism, education = stronger fair use case

Amount used — shorter = safer; a 5-10 second clip for reaction/discussion is generally fine

Effect on market — your clip shouldn't replace the original

In practice for YouTube specifically:
Most major studios have Content ID systems that will flag clips regardless of movie age — even 100-year-old films if the rights holder has registered them

Public domain is the real safe zone — films from 1927 or earlier are generally in the public domain in the US. Some films from the 1928-1963 range are also public domain if copyright wasn't renewed

Disney, Warner Bros., Universal etc. actively enforce even very old films

For a show like TWiST showing a short reaction clip — 5-10 seconds with clear commentary context is the industry standard and rarely gets actioned. But age alone won't protect you.




Today's show:
*A humanoid robot ran the 100m in 9.39, breaking the human Usain Bolt's world record, while an entire stadium cheered. Jason thinks Beijing's World Humanoid Robot Games aren't a science fair, or a fun exhibition, but the best AI PR campaign on Earth. While Americans debate the data centers that train the robot brains, China is already turning them into a spectacle and world-class entertainment.
Find out what Jason thinks America can do to catch up… and why he believes there will be 1 billion Optimus robots deployed by the year 2036.
PLUS on an all-news TWiST, hot takes on the potential $13B Hugging Face sale (to a mystery buyer), why founders should always "buy the threat," analyzing Sam Altman's "I'm listening and I hear you" face, and are kill drones already in operation around the world? We're digging in to how close the real world is to mirroring the "Terminator" films.
Relevant Links
CBS coverage of World Humanoid Robot Games: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/china-robot-usain-bolt-sprint-run-record-faster/
Bloomberg coverage of World Humanoid Robot Games: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lsrUAdcPPE
X-Humanoid: https://www.x-humanoid.com/
Tesla Optimus on X: https://x.com/Tesla_Optimus
Trailer for Spielberg's "A.I. Artificial Intelligence": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_19pRsZRiz4
Bloomberg: Hugging Face exploring sale: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-23/hugging-face-gauging-interest-for-potential-sale-business-insider-says
Fortune: Stripe acquires OpenRouter: https://fortune.com/2026/08/16/stripe-7-billion-deal-ai-firm-openrouter-acquisition/
InfoWorld: OpenAI acqui-hires OPenClaw founder: https://www.infoworld.com/article/4132731/openai-hires-openclaw-founder-as-ai-agent-race-intensifies-2.html
David Senra podcast w/ Sam Altman: https://www.davidsenra.com/episode/sam-altman
Harvey Tenet Research Preview: https://www.harvey.ai/blog/post-training-update-harvey-tenet
David Sacks comments on Harvey's Tenet (from X): https://x.com/DavidSacks/status/2090790063047168473
CNBC: Iran linked to UK cyberattack: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/23/small-uk-power-plant-shut-down-after-iran-linked-cyberattack-report.html
NYT: A drone killed 3 Ukrainians: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/24/world/europe/russia-drones-autonomous-ai-kill-ukraine-war.html
Forbes: Eric Schmidt secretly testing AI drones: https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahemerson/2024/06/06/eric-schmidt-is-secretly-testing-ai-military-drones-in-a-wealthy-silicon-valley-suburb/
Restream: https://restream.io/
Kimbal Musk's Nova Sky Stories: https://novaskystories.com/
IKEA: Plug-in Solar Panels: https://www.ikea.com/be/en/energy-services/plug-in-solar/
Deadline: "Mandalorian and Grogu" box office: https://deadline.com/2026/08/star-wars-mandalorian-grogu-disney-release-date-1237040464/
THR: Dave Filoni leading Lucasfilm: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/star-wars-mandalorian-grogu-box-office-franchise-low-1236604973/
Star Wars: Starfighter first look: https://www.starwars.com/news/star-wars-starfighter-ryan-gosling
Star Wars Theory: "Vader" fan series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ey68aMOV9gc
Timestamps:
0:00 Jason got a fresh Optimus demo
1:35 Robots are breaking human sports records
3:39 America's messaging problem vs. China's elite PR machine
11:07 Odoo - The all-in-one business platform. Your first app is free! Get started today at https://Odoo.com/twist
12:08 Jason got a fresh Optimus demo
19:21 Quo (formerly OpenPhone) - Quo gives you a clean, modern way to handle every customer call, text, and thread all in one place. Try it free and get 20% off your first 6 months at https://quo.com/TWiST
28:09 Who's going to buy Hugging Face and why?
28:56 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
31:35 How OpenAI killed OpenClaw
39:08 Sam Altman wants to make a platform, not a product
41:19 The "Castles and Keeps" metaphor for sovereign AI
49:27 UBI isn't happening but we could raise the minimum wage
58:47 Embracing redundancy and self-reliance
1:10:53 Is Star Wars at a historic low point (and Lon's Worst Take)



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