This Week in AI

Jason Calacanis

An experts-only AI podcast - Roundtables: Think the All In Podcast for AI. Jason + 3 CEO-level experts breaking down the news & trends. - Demos: 3 deep-dive demos every week, from killer prompts and building your first AI agent to hands-on walkthroughs of brand-new products

Episodes

  1. The new rules for hiring, building, and betting on AI | This Week in AI E002

    1 DAY AGO

    The new rules for hiring, building, and betting on AI | This Week in AI E002

    Jason Calacanis sits down with two founders building at the frontier of AI products and infrastructure: Tanay Kothari (Wispr Flow) and Richard Socher (You.com & AIX Ventures). They dig into the Citrini "doom post" that rattled markets, the real economics of automation waves, and how AI-first teams are being rebuilt from the ground up. We explore how the agentic shift is reshaping companies, costs, and careers: The AI Doom Post Debunked: Why the viral Citrini Substack predicting 10% unemployment and an S&P crash is completely wrong.AI-First Hiring: How Wispr Flow shipped their #1 Android voice app with one engineer running ten Claude agents simultaneously — and stopped hiring junior developers entirely.Customer Support at Scale: How Wispr went from needing 200 support agents to 4 by automating 15 distinct support loops, from bug tickets to product feedback.The Cognitive Surplus: Why automation doesn't destroy jobs, it creates the next wave of businesses nobody has predicted yet.Open Source vs. Closed Models: Why DeepSeek forced every major lab to innovate faster, and how Wispr built its own 90% gross margin voice model by starting on open source.Taiwan & the Chip Risk: Apple's Mac Mini onshoring, the 2027 CCP military warning, and the five contingency plans the world is quietly building around TSMC.OpenClaw Mania: Producer Oliver joins the show to talk about how he is using OpenClaw to do his tasks for him. This Week In Startups is made possible by: Notion - https://www.notion.com/twist Quadratic - https://www.Quadratic.ai/twist Timestamps: 00:01:16 - Welcome & Guest Introductions: Tanay Kothari (Wispr Flow) and Richard Socher (You.com) 00:03:33 - Why Voice Dictation Finally Works: How Wispr turns rambling speech into send-ready messages 00:05:43 - Foot Pedals, Rings & the Future of Voice Input Modalities 00:09:32 - The Citrini "Doom Post": The viral Substack predicting 10% unemployment and an S&P crash 00:11:52 - Quadratic - Bringing the productivity boost of AI into your spreadsheets. Visit https://www.quadratic.ai/twist to sign up and use the code TWIST to get one free month of their pro tier subscription. 00:14:28 - Debunking the Doom: Cognitive Surplus, the Lump of Labor Fallacy & Why People Adapt 00:22:08 Notion ****- Notion brings all your notes, docs, and projects into one connected space that just works with AI built right in. Try Notion, with Notion Agent, at https://www.notion.com/twist 00:26:18 - Open Source vs. Closed Models: How DeepSeek Forced Innovation & Who Wins the Cost Race 00:38:05 - Building AI-First Teams: Certifications, Agent Management & the New Skill Stack 00:43:42 - Customer Support Reinvented: How Wispr Went from 200 Agents to 4 01:16:29 - Breaking News: Apple Onshores Mac Mini to Houston & The Taiwan Chip Risk Explained Subscribe to This Week in AI on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-week-in-startups/id315114957 Subscribe to This Week in AI on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6cPSOft5WRm3zJq7gchacA?si=3b86d10c10434b21 Thanks for watching! 🤖 If you want to stay ahead of the curve on all things AI, make sure to join our community across all platforms: 📩 Get the Weekly Newsletter: https://thisweekinai.ai/ 📺 Subscribe on YouTube: www.youtube.com/@ThisWeekinAIPodcast 📸 Instagram: www.instagram.com/thisweekinaipodcast 📱 TikTok: www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinaipodcast✖️X: https://x.com/ThisWeeknAI Follow Jason: X: https://twitter.com/Jason LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis Follow Oliver: https://x.com/oliverkorzen Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/

    1h 28m
  2. What is Holding OpenClaw Back?! | This Week in AI Episode 1

    18 FEB

    What is Holding OpenClaw Back?! | This Week in AI Episode 1

    Jason Calacanis sits down with three CEOs building at the bleeding edge of the agentic revolution: Mitesh Agrawal (Positron AI), Alex Elias (Qloo), and Kash Ali (TaxGPT). They discuss the rapid rise of Open Claw, an open-source platform that is fundamentally changing work by allowing users to create autonomous agents. "Saving 30 minutes a day... that’s like getting three more weeks a year back." "I don't need a technical recruiter today." We explore how autonomous agents are moving beyond "Copilots" to become independent teammates: The AI Executive Assistant: How Mitesh Agrawal uses agents to automate inbox filtering and Slack drafts, recapturing 6% of his year.The Hiring Hiatus: Kash Ali screened 1,000 job applications in two hours with "flawless" accuracy, replacing 40+ hours of manual labor.The $1M One-Person Firm: How AI is solving the shortage of 340,000 accountants by allowing a single person to command an "army of agents".Democratizing Luxury: Scaling the "chauffeur and concierge" experience to everyone through taste-based AI and structured inference.Autonomous Media: A demo of an agent that transcribes, clips, and captions viral content in five minutes, a process that previously took an hour.The agent era is here. Are you building your replicant, or are you being left behind by a 10x more efficient workforceThis Week In Startups is made possible by:Notion - https://www.notion.com/twistQuadratic - https://www.Quadratic.ai/twistTimestamps: 00:00 Welcome to This Week in AI!03:17 How are CEO’s using OpenClaw?09:25 Notion - Notion brings all your notes, docs, and projects into one connected space that just works with AI built right in. Try Notion, with Notion Agent, at notion.com/twist00:19:09 — Automating the "Great Hiring Hiatus”00:19:20 Quadratic - Bringing the productivity boost of AI into your spreadsheets. Visit [quadratic.ai/twist](https://www.quadratic.ai/twist) to sign up and use the code TWIST to get one free month of their pro tier subscription.00:27:11 — Saving Independent Film with AI Extras00:33:04 — Solving the Global Accounting Crisis00:36:36 — The $1 Million One-Person Tax Advisory00:43:05 — Demo: The Autonomous Content Clipper0:00 Making Clips with OpenClaw01:07:39 — Micro-Agents vs. "Ultron”01:10:23 — The Developer, the CEO, and the AI Joke (Outro)Subscribe to This Week in AI on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...Thanks for watching!🤖 If you want to stay ahead of the curve on all things AI, make sure to join our community across all platforms:📩 Get the Weekly Newsletter: https://thisweekinai.ai/📺 Subscribe on YouTube: [   / @thisweekinaipodcast  ](   / @thisweekinaipodcast  )📸 Instagram: [www.instagram.com/thisweekinaipodcast](  / thisweekinaipodcast  )📱 TikTok: [www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinaipodcast](  / thisweekinaipodcast  )✖️X:https://x.com/ThisWeeknAIFollow Jason:X:   / jason  LinkedIn: [  / jasoncalacanis  ](  / jasoncalacanis  )*Thank you to our partners:09:25 Notion - Notion brings all your notes, docs, and projects into one connected space that just works with AI built right in. Try Notion, with Notion Agent, at notion.com/twist00:19:20 Quadratic - Bringing the productivity boost of AI into your spreadsheets. Visit [quadratic.ai/twist](https://www.quadratic.ai/twist) to sign up and use the code TWIST to get one free month of their pro tier subscription.Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/

    1h 13m

About

An experts-only AI podcast - Roundtables: Think the All In Podcast for AI. Jason + 3 CEO-level experts breaking down the news & trends. - Demos: 3 deep-dive demos every week, from killer prompts and building your first AI agent to hands-on walkthroughs of brand-new products

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