This Week In Startups is made possible by: Render - render.com/twist Vanta - vanta.com/twist Northwest Registered Agent - northwestregisteredagent.com/twist Have you wanted to invest in venture capital alongside your 401k contributions, but struggled to find a way to place a bet? Search no more, for the AngelList team has created USVC, a new fund that will accept investments of as little as $500 from folks who lack accreditation. USVC’s Ankur Napgal swung by the show to chat about investment strategies, access, fees, and just how illiquid the venture-like vehicle will prove to be. Jason and Alex were then joined by Jon Durbin, core contributor at Chutes, and Yash Goenka, co-founder and CEO of Humwork. Chutes is the most valuable Bittensor subnet, focused on aggregating GPUs to offer trustless AI compute. Humwork wants to help bring a human into your agentic workflow to unstick your agent when it runs into a hitch. The show closes with a news lightning round — enjoy! Timestamps: 0:00 Intro + Plaud AI sponsor read (Jason demos the NotePin S) 2:06 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! 3:50 Episode overview: USVC, Chutes, Humwork 7:41 USVC structure: $500 min, no accreditation, quarterly redemptions 10:28 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 11:39 Fee structure breakdown: 1% mgmt fee, ~2.5% net expense ratio 15:41 USVC portfolio: xAI, Anthropic, OpenAI, Crusoe, Vercel 16:17 Strategy: 1/3 emerging managers, 1/3 growth, 1/3 secondaries 19:00 $1B cap and path to expanding the fund 20:33 Vanta - Compliance and security shouldn't be a deal-breaker for startups to win new business. Vanta makes it easy for companies to get a SOC 2 reports fast. Get $1,000 off for a limited time at https://www.vanta.com/twist 28:00 What is sovereign compute? Permissionless GPU networks explained 30:10 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. 44:53 Usage history: 160B tokens/day peak, free-to-paid transition 46:41 GPU pricing: from $0.77/hr to $3.50/hr as shortage bites 49:13 DeepSeek censorship demo: Taiwan test on DeepSeek chat 57:27 Permissionless supply curves: Uber/Airbnb analogy for induced demand 59:20 Yash Goenka, co-founder of Humwork (YC S26) 1:00:49 Lightning Round: Ryan Cohen wants to buy eBay — Jason's hot take 1:12:36 Lightning Round: Cerebras IPO update ($27–36B valuation range) 1:14:05 Lightning Round: Spirit Airlines / JetBlue / M&A regulation debate 1:19:10 OFF-DUTY: Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord 1:32:57 Alex's OFF-DUTY: Captain of Industry Subscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.com Check out the TWIST500: https://www.twist500.com Subscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcp Follow Lon: X: https://x.com/lons Follow Alex: X: https://x.com/alex LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelm Follow Jason: X: https://twitter.com/Jason 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 Follow TWiST: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartups YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartups TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartups Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com
