Cerebras's IPO goes vertical, and the death of OpenClaw? | E2287
This Week in Startups
Jason Calacanis
4.2 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 11 May 2026
⏱️ 83 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today’s show:
Cerebras just jacked its IPO range to $150–$160 a share, OpenAI bought a consulting firm to seed its $4 billion private-equity joint venture, and a startup in Oakland is electrolyzing magnesium out of seawater for one-third the going price. Alex Wilhelm and Jason Calacanis go deep with AI21 co-CEO Ori Goshen on why model orchestration, not bigger LLMs, will decide who wins enterprise AI.
The crew also covered the decline of OpenClaw, TikTok's new £3.99 ad-free tier, more entries in the live-show sidebar bounty, and had time for a little Off Duty before signing off.
Guest Links:
Timestamps:
0:00 Ori Goshen, CEO of AI21 joins the show
1:20 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!
5:14 Why enterprises care about token cost optimization
6:01 Jamba as open-weight; Maestro as proprietary orchestration
10:08 LinkedIn Jobs - Hire right, the first time. Post your first job and get $100 off towards your job post at https://LinkedIn.com/twist
12:56 AI21 customer roster: FNAC, US tech giants, Israeli companies
19:01 Alex Grant, CEO of Magrathea Metals joins to discuss pulling magnesium from seawater
20:03 Live video of the Oakland pilot electrolyzer
20:10 Deel - Founders scale faster on Deel. Set up payroll for any country in minutes, hire anyone anywhere, get visas handled fast, and get back to building. Visit https://deel.com/twist to learn more.
22:01 Magnesium as a "gateway metal" for aluminum, defense, aerospace
23:20 TETRA joint venture & the Evergreen Project in Arkansas
23:38 Series A close, JV economics: $3,000/ton vs. $7,000/ton market
29:10 Sidebar bounty update: Glass Sidebar (Oliver Choy) demo
30:47 Netsuite - Get the free business guide Demystifying AI at https://netsuite.com/twist
31:47 Sidebar bounty update: Sidecast (Patrick Hughes) demo
36:09 Reducing scope to "real-time fact checker only" for final round
37:24 Ro.co: Ro's insurance checker will let you know if your coverage includes GLP-1s for FREE. Go to https://Ro.co/Twist for your free insurance check.
39:07 Cerebras IPO: $115–$125 → $150–$160 per share
44:19 Will OpenAI's compute commitments to Cerebras actually get funded?
49:19 Fervo Energy IPO — venture-backed geothermal company going public
49:40 OpenAI Deployment Company + Tomoro acquisition explained
53:51 Anthropic's parallel $1.5B PE joint venture with Blackstone & Goldman
56:05 Why Jason thinks these PE spinouts are convoluted financial engineering
56:40 OpenClaw's decline + competition from Cowork, Perplexity, Grok
1:04:22 TikTok's £3.99 ad-free subscription launches in the UK
1:09:09 Knicks sweep 76ers — Jason's playoff predictions
1:11:24 Off-duty: "There Is No Antimemetics Division" by qntm
1:13:25 Off-duty: Fall of Civilizations podcast by Paul Cooper
1:16:37 States' rights, federalism, housing supply & closing thoughts
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Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This is one of the highest stakes games I've ever seen. |
| 0:04.0 | A 750 megawatt deal with Open AI in January. |
| 0:06.8 | It's not just insanity. |
| 0:08.3 | It's insanity with a twist. |
| 0:09.6 | The question here is, what is that deal with Open AI worth? |
| 0:13.6 | And then is that deal guaranteed or not? |
| 0:17.0 | If the revenue doesn't show up, you're out of business and you go bankrupt. |
| 0:20.0 | Can't pay your bills. |
| 0:21.1 | Is Cerebrus going to, or Oracle, going to sue an Open AI? The acquisition by OpenAI took the wind |
| 0:28.1 | out of the sales. This week in startups is brought to you by NetSuite. The business landscape is very |
| 0:34.0 | chaotic right now. That's why you need NetSuite by Oracle. Get the free business guide |
| 0:38.3 | demystifying AI at NetSuite.com slash twist. Deal. Founders scale faster on deal. Set up payroll |
| 0:46.0 | for any country in minutes, hire anyone anywhere, get visas handled fast and get back to building. |
| 0:51.9 | Visit deal.com slash twist to learn more. And LinkedIn jobs. |
| 0:57.0 | Higher right the first time. Post your first job and get $100 off towards your job post at |
| 1:02.5 | LinkedIn.com slash twist. All right, everybody, welcome back to Twist. I'm Jason Kalakannis. He is |
| 1:10.3 | Alex Wilhelm. He's at Alex on X.com. I'm Jason Kalakannis. He is Alex Wilhelm. |
| 1:11.1 | He's at Alex on X.com. I am at Jason. We have a pack show, so we're going to get right to work. Well, let's go. Alex, what's first up on this docket? I mean, before we start anything, I think I got to just get my plug. Oh, yes. And I'm going to just hit the record button. Oh, I get the nice haptic. |
| 1:28.0 | I get the light goes off. |
| 1:29.3 | And this is the one you put on the back of your phone. What is that? What's the difference between this one and the pin? Well, this one, if it's on the back of your phone, you can record phone calls. Now, of course, you have to make sure you're making people aware of this, or maybe if you're in one-party state, all that |
| 1:44.4 | other good stuff. But if you're jumping on a Zoom call or a conference call, it actually can |
| 1:50.2 | record the call and not on speakerphone. It just does it. So an amazing product. It's MagSafe. |
... |
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