Jason Mentors The Next Generation + Why AI Is Bad at Teaching (Aristotle Interview) | E2346
This Week in StartupsShow Notes
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Today’s show:
The smarter AI gets, the more it just does the work for you, and the less helpful it becomes as a tutor.
Shan Reddy of Aristotle joins Jason to demo a voice-first tutor built to run a session the way a $200-an-hour human tutor would. We also dive into why frontier models are trained to hand you answers rather than build real understanding.
PLUS, in Ask Jason, an incoming Fordham student (Jason’s alma mater!) wants to prepare for a career in finance. Plus, David from NYU calls back and wants to discuss what everyone would do with $500K in free money. Then, why does Jason think the Doomerism is coming from inside the AI labs?
Guests:
Shan Reddy on X: https://x.com/rshanreddy
Aristotle: https://www.heyaristotle.com/
Relevant Links:
Shoe Dog by Phil Knight → https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoe_Dog
Something Like an Autobiography by Akira Kurosawa → https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Something_Like_an_Autobiography
Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson, which Dovid is reading now → https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein:_His_Life_and_Universe
Gartner, Jason's example of firms doing research on behalf of corporations → https://www.gartner.com/
"Religious Scholars Met With Anthropic. What They Heard Stunned Them." by Elizabeth Dias, The New York Times, Sept. 29, 2026; the story Lon brings up → https://www.inquirer.com/news/nation-world/religious-leaders-met-with-anthropic-20260930.html
David Sacks accuses Anthropic of a "regulatory capture strategy based on fear-mongering"; the line Lon references (Bloomberg Law) → https://news.bloomberglaw.com/artificial-intelligence/anthropic-is-running-a-strategy-based-on-fear-mongering-sacks
Aristotle's $5M seed round (PR Newswire) → https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/aristotle-secures-5m-to-replace-the-chatbot-with-high-dosage-ai-tutoring-for-students-302880500.html
"The 2 Sigma Problem" by Benjamin Bloom (1984), original paper → https://web.mit.edu/5.95/readings/bloom-two-sigma.pdf
Journal record (Educational Researcher / SAGE) → https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.3102/0013189X013006004
NYC's AI moratorium through 8th grade (ABC News) → https://abcnews.com/Technology/new-york-city-public-schools-banning-ai-middle/story?id=136134872
Alpha School → https://www.alpha.school
Brilliant's origin story at the LAUNCH Festival (NPR) → https://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/07/23/203677692/giving-brightest-kids-the-cram-school-experience-online
Timestamps:
00:00:00 Live Ask Jason kicks off
00:00:14 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!
00:00:56 Fordham-bound caller asks how to break into finance in the AI era
00:05:59 Jason's gift: read one biography a month
00:10:06 Vanta: Get $1000 off your SOC 2 at https://www.vanta.com/twist
00:12:06 Returning caller David: what would you do with $500K?
00:19:53 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%.
00:24:40 Bringing an AI protein folding tool into drug discovery
00:27:19 How to do customer discovery with big companies
00:29:44 The "dark arts" of market research and corporate intelligence
00:30:13 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 TWIST26
00:33:43 Is AI fear a dark PR campaign?
00:35:01 Anthropic meets with religious scholars
00:40:45 Are AI labs living through an Oppenheimer moment?
00:42:50 Why we need to talk about AI's upside in education
00:44:31 Sean Ready
More from This Week in Startups
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:
This Week In Startups is made possible by: