AUTOMATING HEALTH CARE, THERMODYNAMIC COMPUTING, AND PRODUCT VELOCITY | E2155

This Week in Startups

Jason Calacanis

Technology

4.4 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 23 July 2025

⏱️ 81 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Today’s show:

TWiST is back with a three more hugely insightful (and also fun!) founder interviews.

First up, Trey Holterman from Tennr tells us why getting in to see a specialist is so time consuming, and how AI is making the entire health care industry more streamlined.THEN Gill Verdon from Extropic AI unpacks deterministic vs. probabilistic computing, and how thermodynamics can make everything from robots to VR more effective.FINALLY, Tyler Denk from our fav newsletter platform Beehiiv walks us through their future roadmap, and explains why they’re adding new features SO OFTEN.It’s a packed episode full of fresh insights for founders. Check it out!

Timestamps:

(0:00) Alex opens the show with the venture/investor POV on TWiST 500 med tech company Tennr

(03:38) Tennr CEO/co-founder Trey Holterman on the inefficiencies facing medical specialists and why patients are actually “leads”

(10:20) Squarespace - Use offer code TWIST to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain at https://www.Squarespace.com/TWIST

(11:44) Paid Promo END

(14:05) How Tennr trained an AI model to comb through clinical histories, medical files, and doctor’s notes

(18:19) Why automation matters for Tennr but it’s not the WHOLE story

(20:03) Northwest Registered Agent. Form your entire business identity in just 10 clicks and 10 minutes. Get more privacy, more options, and more done—visit https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twist today!

(21:10) Paid Promo END

(22:57) The incredible cultural influence of the Dominos Pizza Tracker

(29:57) AWS Activate - AWS Activate helps startups bring their ideas to life. Apply to AWS Activate today to learn more. Visit aws.amazon.com/startups/credits

(31:20) Gill Verdon from Extropic on the difficulty of keeping up with the demand for compute and the “scaling law”

(35:37) Thermodynamic regimes, the differences between deterministic vs. probabilistic computing, and why this matters

(41:31) Gill on expanding Extropic’s research team while keeping a close eye on burn

(52:17) Will robots ever be FULLY autonomous, with no ties or connections back to the fleet? Gill says… maybe!

(58:52) Beehiiv’s Tyler Denk on hitting $20M ARR while ALSO scaling up their ad network

(01:00:35) The practical and psychological importance of product velocity and shipping as many features as possible

(01:01:57) Why Tyler says “Substack vs. Beehiiv” is analogous to “Amazon vs. Shopify”

(01:08:08) How much larger can the newsletter market still GROW? (And the promise of moving beyond content and into marketing emails.)

(01:09:00) Why Tyler thinks the strongest publishers own their audience and distribution

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

Thank you to our partners:

(10:20) Squarespace - Use offer code TWIST to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain at https://www.Squarespace.com/TWIST

(29:57) AWS Activate - AWS Activate helps startups bring their ideas to life. Apply to AWS Activate today to learn more. Visit aws.amazon.com/startups/credits

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

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	So I go to a PCP.
0:01.7	They say, Alex, you need to go talk to a nephrologist. And then what happens right at that moment and how does it break? So the, it's like a, you kind of had to think about it as like a funnel, right? If you clicked on an Instagram ad for the incredible, you know, shirt that you have on there, right? That funnel is super, super tight. All your data is going to neatly get passed on over to the store that's trying to sell you that shirt, and you're going to enter some information, and, man, if you don't buy that shirt right then and there, they're going to hound you, and they're going to find you on every inch of the internet until you buy. Because what they really care about is capturing you as a lead, right? So most people think about patients as patients,
0:39.3	and not enough actually is a lead that really needs to go and be serviced and worked
0:42.9	to go and actually get their attention.
0:45.6	This week in startups is brought to you by Squarespace.
0:49.8	Turn your idea into a beautiful website.
0:52.4	Go to Squarespace.com slash twist for a free trial.
0:56.0	When you're ready to launch, use offer code Twist to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
1:03.0	Northwest Registered Agent.
1:05.0	Starting your business should be simple.
1:08.0	With Northwest Registered Agent, you can form your entire business identity
1:12.0	in just 10 clicks and 10 minutes. From LLCs to trademarks, domains to custom websites, they've got
1:19.4	you covered. Get more privacy, more options, and more done. Visit Northwest Registeredagent.com
1:27.1	slash twist today. And AWS Activate.
1:32.1	AWS Activate helps startups bring their ideas to life. As you build and scale your business,
1:38.1	activate credits grow with you to support your changing needs. Apply to AWS Activate Today
1:43.8	and receive up to $100,000 in credits.
1:48.0	Visit aWS.com slash startups slash credits. Hey everybody and welcome back to this week in startups.
1:57.7	My name is Alex and we have a special episode for you today. We are once again going to go talk to some of the founders who are building the companies of the future. If you're not familiar with our Twist 500 project, we are going out into the world to find the 500 startups that have the potential to have the largest financial impact, which is a good corollary for how much disruption they're going to bring to the world of business and technology. We're having a lot of fun. We have about 400 names on the list so far and are
2:21.7	racing to close, but also right now we are going through and talking to people as often as we can.
2:26.6	So today, we are going to talk to the founders from Tenor and Extropic and Beehive. So we have applied
2:33.6	AI, next generation chips, and then a software company that we've talked to before, and weropic and Beehive. So we have applied AI, next generation chips, and then a software
	...

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