Show Notes
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Today’s show:
An OpenAI agent breached Australia's Medicare statistics portal in June, and it took 84 days for the Frontier Lab to publicly acknowledge it. Jason and Lon dig into whether this is an important cautionary tale about alignment, or if PM Anthony Albanese looking to join the AI conversation.
Then Bryant Chou of Ploy joins to explain skipping pre-seed and seed entirely to raise $27M, and why he’s taking his time to build his all-in-one agentic solution for running businesses.
Learn why Google is launching four TPUs into orbit for Project Suncatcher. PLUS, how many robots a week is Tesla now shipping with Optimus, and Jensen Huang told Ezra Klein basic math no longer matters. Is he right? Can we forget long division, at last?
Guests:
Bryant Chou on X: https://x.com/bryantchou
PloyAI: https://ploy.ai/
Relevant Links:
Ploy raises $27M seed led by First Round Capital and Y Combinator (Founderland) → https://www.founderland.ai/articles/webflow-co-founder-launches-ai-marketing-platform-with-27m-s-mqj8o952
OpenAI's $2M-in-tokens offer to every YC startup(TechCrunch via Yahoo) → https://finance.yahoo.com/sectors/technology/articles/sam-altman-makes-mic-drop-212302858.html
Original Bloomberg report on the a16z probe → https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-17/andreessen-horowitz-focus-of-doj-probe-over-board-directors
Google: Project Suncatcher's first test launch on SpaceX's Transporter-18 → https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/models-and-research/google-research/google-project-suncatcher-facts/
ABC News (Australia): full timeline, from the June 18 breach to OpenAI's Sept. 10 email → https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-24/ai-agent-accessed-australian-government-site-pm-says/107189078
Ando emerges from stealth with $20M to take on Slack (TechCrunch) → https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/24/ando-eyes-slack-as-it-builds-team-messaging-platform-for-humans-and-agents-to-work-together/
Google's $900M investment in SpaceX's $1B round, January 2015 (VentureBeat) → https://venturebeat.com/technology/google-confirms-it-put-900m-into-spacexs-1b-round
Tesla ramps Optimus to several hundred robots a week; hands are the bottleneck (Electrek, summarizing The Information) → https://electrek.co/2026/09/25/tesla-optimus-production-ramp-hands-ai-generalization-problems/
Jensen Huang tells Ezra Klein forgetting basic math may not matter, and that he doesn't know his own address (Kotaku) → https://kotaku.com/nvidia-ceo-doesnt-care-that-kids-are-forgetting-basic-math-because-of-ai-i-actually-dont-know-my-address-2000737092
Sydney Sweeney's Novig "Just Sports" ad and the athlete backlash, including Amy Hunt's comment (Yahoo) → https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/celebrity/articles/sydney-sweeney-novig-ad-controversy-172900515.html
Nike exits the S&P 100 after 18 years (Fortune) → https://fortune.com/2026/09/08/nike-stock-plummets-sp500-market-cap-index/
The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth trailer: David Fincher directs Tarantino's script; IMAX Nov. 25, Netflix Dec. 23 (Variety) → https://variety.com/2026/film/news/the-further-mis-adventures-cliff-booth-trailer-brad-pitt-1236701901/
Timestamps:
0:00 Whoop fire alarm: Jason's dry-aged steak incident
1:30 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!
4:45 News: an OpenAI agent breached Australia's Medicare statistics portal
12:48 Scraper or hack? Australia's PM jumps into the AI safety debate
13:31 News: Google launches four TPUs into orbit for Project Suncatcher
18:27 Guest: Bryant Chou of PloyAI
20:07 AD: Paper is the legal backbone for thousands of startup founders and fund managers - includin
More from This Week in Startups
This Week In Startups is made possible by:
This Week In Startups is made possible by:
This Week In Startups is made possible by: Plaud: https://plaud.ai/twist Northwest Registered Agent: https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twistdomain Vanta: https://www.vanta.com/twist Rippling: https://rippling.ai/twist Today’s show: Jason can’t stop praising Nathan Fielder’s new A24 hybrid documentary about Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos, “You Can See Everything,” and he’s insisting that Lon check it out before the next podcast. Hear his spoiler-free review, how the film upended his expectations based on Fielder’s previous work, and why Lon also recommends Lance Oppenheim’s HBO Max series “Ren Faire.” Plus, we’re talking to Clone Robotics co-founder and CEO Dhanush Radhakrishnan about why he thinks robots should not just be humanoid but should look and move precisely like humans. We’re digging deep into how his hydraulic myofiber artificial muscle technology alters and even improves on the pulley-based systems being deployed by competitors, why he thinks the models that power domestic helper-bots will be commoditized, and how quickly he thinks he can put a robo-butler in every American home. Plus we’re comparing the potential impact of Anthropic’s new Public Benefit Fund vs. Elon Musk’s plan to give every baby a share of SpaceX, and re-considering simulation theory after Odyssey dropped an artificial fruit fly brain into an artificial landscape. Guest Dhanush Radhakrishnan on X: https://x.com/dhanushisrad Clone Robotics: https://clonerobotics.com/ Related Links “You Can See Everything” trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvW_N5p1q44 “You Can See Everything” on Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/you_can_see_everything John Carreyrou’s Theranos investigation (Wall Street Journal): https://www.wsj.com/articles/theranos-has-struggled-with-blood-tests-1444881901 “Ren Faire” HBO Max trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHZUVTrrexE “Nathan for You”: Smokers Allowed clip (Comedy Central): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HttB2fYAm-8 Anthropic: Investing in the Public Benefit: https://www.anthropic.com/news/public-benefit-fund Elon Musk SpaceX pledge: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2112089556615123114 Dell’s $6.25B Invest America commitment: https://www.onedell.com/investamerica/ Odyssey Fly Simulation X post: https://x.com/odysseyml/status/2111589148146749616 Chris Williamson: “The ElevenLabs Situation is Crazy”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxDNHLgWInU ElevenLabs’ Legendary Voices marketplace: https://elevenlabs.io/iconic-marketplace TWiST newsletter on Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com/ LAUNCH Careers page: https://careers.launch.co/ Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 00:10 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! 03:18 Jason's "You Can See Everything" reaction 14:37 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 15:27 What films max out RT's critic and audience scores 20:08 Anthropic commits 5% equity to Public Benefit Fund 24:28 Would equity change how Americans feel about AI? 27:08 Vanta - Get $1000 off your SOC 2 at https://www.vanta.com/twist 38:38 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. 39:48 Dhanush from Clone Robotics joins the show 42:43 How hydraulic muscle technology actually works 54:55 When can we have our robot butlers please? 56:55 Where will Clone get its robot brains? 1:12:17 Odyssey trapped a fake fly brain in a simulated environment 1:23:09 Did ElevenLabs steal a podcaster's voice? 1:30:13 Check us out on Substack! Subscribe to our newsletters on Substack: TWiST: https://twist
This Week In Startups is made possible by:
This Week In Startups is made possible by: