Clawdbot is an inflection point in AI history | E2240
This Week in Startups
Jason Calacanis
4.2 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 27 January 2026
⏱️ 62 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This Week In Startups is made possible by:
Quo - http://quo.com/TWiST
Lemon IO - https://lemon.io/twist
Northwest Registered Agent - https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twist
Today’s show:
Jason is back from Davos and Tokyo! We are jumping right back in with a group of Clawdbot power users: Alex Finn, Matt Von Horn, and Dan Penguine.
Clawdbot is a hot open source AI project that lets users automate… everything! Dan helped his automate his aging parent’s tea shop, Matt built news sourcing bots, and Alex runs his one-man SAAS startup with Clawdbot as an AI employee!
But with all of that power comes the responsibility of making sure you are not giving your AI too many authorizations that could come under fire! Whether fisching emails, “injections”, or bad decision making from incorrect information online.
Check out how these 3 experts, Jason and Alex are thinking about the bleeding edge of AI!
Timestamps:
(00:00) Introducing today’s Clawdbot experts!
(04:09) How Matt Von Horn makes “Skills” with Clawdbot
(10:53) Quo (formerly OpenPhone) gives you a clean, modern way to handle every customer call, text, and thread all in one place. Try it free at http://quo.com/TWiST.
(13:25) Dan Penguine’s “Normy” use case: automating his parent’s tea shop
(19:50) Lemon.io - Get 15% off your first 4 weeks of developer time at https://lemon.io/twist
(22:23) Alex Finn breaks down how Clawdbot lets him run a one man startup
(24:28) Alex Finn on Clawdbot autonomously building apps within his business
(28:33) Security concerns with Clawdbot, can your AI get hacked?
(32:46) Northwest Registered Agent. Get more when you start your business with Northwest. In 10 clicks and 10 minutes, you can form your company and walk away with a real business identity — Learn more at https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twist
(35:07) Why is everyone buying Mac Minis?
(37:39) How to think about LLM Token usage
(46:02) Clawdbot will build CRMs, project management software, etc without being asked. Is this the end of SAAS?
(46:58) Matt live uploads his new Clawdbot skill on aire!
(48:22) Why was Clawdbot able to move so much quicker than Anthropic and OpenAI?
(50:17) What is Clawdbot’s business model as an open source AI?
(53:27) Matt’s recursive AI prompt loop and how AI prompts layer
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Follow Lon:
X: https://x.com/lons
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Follow Alex:
X: https://x.com/alex
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelm/
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Follow Jason:
X: https://twitter.com/Jason
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis/
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Thank you to our partners:
(10:53) Quo (formerly OpenPhone) gives you a clean, modern way to handle every customer call, text, and thread all in one place. Try it free at http://quo.com/TWiST
(19:50) Lemon.io - Get 15% off your first 4 weeks of developer time at https://lemon.io/twist
(32:46) Northwest Registered Agent. Get more when you start your business with Northwest. In 10 clicks and 10 minutes, you can form your company and walk away with a real business identity — Learn more at www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twist
Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | So explain to the audience what Claudebot is. |
| 0:02.6 | How would you explain it? |
| 0:04.0 | Is it's what Siri was supposed to be. |
| 0:06.3 | It's being able to access all your things, all your API keys, all your emails, |
| 0:12.3 | calendar, et cetera. |
| 0:13.6 | But it has a back end of whatever you want it to have. |
| 0:16.3 | But most people I know are using Cloud code, which is extremely powerful, extremely intelligent, and |
| 0:22.0 | control and finish a lot of tasks very well. |
| 0:24.9 | Here's what it comes down to. |
| 0:26.2 | I think this is the single greatest application of AI I've ever seen in my entire life. |
| 0:31.1 | It is basically, for me at least, a 24-7 AI employee that works for you at all times, doesn't |
| 0:37.4 | need to sleep, doesn't need to eat, |
| 0:38.6 | doesn't complain. It is constantly doing work for me and improving my business. I use this |
| 0:43.3 | completely to manage my business and do work for you while I'm sleeping and do a lot of tasks. |
| 0:48.9 | I just don't have time to do. |
| 0:59.7 | This week in startups is brought to you by Northwest Registered Agent. Get more when you start your business with Northwest. In 10 clicks and 10 minutes, you can form your company and walk away |
| 1:04.8 | with a real business identity. Learn more at Northwest Registeredagent.com slash twist. Lemon.io. |
| 1:11.7 | Get 15% off your first four weeks of developer time at lemon. |
| 1:15.6 | com slash twist. |
| 1:17.7 | Quo. |
| 1:18.3 | Quo gives you a clean, modern way to handle every customer call, text, and thread all |
| 1:23.4 | in one place. |
... |
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