Communist coffee hits NYC, RIP Hulu, GPT-5 arrives and more | E2161
This Week in Startups
Jason Calacanis
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 7 August 2025
⏱️ 73 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today’s show:
It’s a brand-new PACKED episode of TWiST. Jason and Alex welcome guest Zach Dive of Adam.new, to tell us why he made a deepfake AI ad starring Jason and the All-In besties.
PLUS a rundown of the biggest tech and startup news of the day, including Disney’s decision to sunset Hulu, OpenAI’s new open-weight models, the Cloudflare vs. Perplexity feud, Uber’s newly-announced stock buyback, China’s Luckin Coffee coming to Manhattan, and much much more!
Timestamps:
(0:00) Luckin Coffee hits NYC… along with COMMUNISM?!
(09:15) Is China taking on major American brands on PURPOSE?
(10:16) Lemon.io - Get 15% off your first 4 weeks of developer time at https://Lemon.io/twist
(11:29) Show Continues…
(20:17) CLA - Get started with CLA's CPAs, consultants, and wealth advisors now at https://claconnect.com/tech
(21:30) Show Continues…
(26:02) RIP HULU: Why Disney is sunsetting the iconic app.
(28:37) Nostracanis Returns: Jason’s 2017 Disney vs. Netflix predictions came true
(30:24) .TECH - Say it without saying it. Head to www.get.tech/twist or your favorite registrar to get a clean, sharp .tech domain today.
(31:28) Show Continues…
(35:39) Zach Dive of Adam.new joins to tell us about making a viral deepfake ad starring JCal and the Besties
(44:10) Zach shares thoughts on AI and copyright, and why it’s a problem for the “big dogs,” not him… yet
(48:12) Jason wants to wet his beak… but is there room in the Adam.new seed round?
(53:07)OpenAI’s new models are open-WEIGHT; how that’s different from open-source.
(58:36) Do Nvidia and Apple devices NEED kill switches and backdoors? Why it’s such a tough question.
(01:02:10) GPT-5 arrives TOMORROW?!
(01:03:31) Cloudflare vs. Perplexity… let them fight?
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:
Follow Alex:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelm
Follow Jason:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis
Thank you to our partners:
(10:16) Lemon.io - Get 15% off your first 4 weeks of developer time at https://Lemon.io/twist
(20:17) CLA - Get started with CLA's CPAs, consultants, and wealth advisors now at https://claconnect.com/tech
(30:24) .TECH - Say it without saying it. Head to www.get.tech/twist or your favorite registrar to get a clean, sharp .tech domain today.
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
Follow TWiST:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartups
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekin
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartups
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartups
Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com
Subscribe to the Founder University Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@founderuniversity1916
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | It's been done. |
| 0:00.9 | So maybe, I mean, listen, I don't, I don't describe any bad intent here, but you thought people wouldn't be confused? |
| 0:07.6 | I would say the majority were not confused, but hey, you're confused. |
| 0:11.1 | But you explicitly did it with the tech crunch one to confuse people. |
| 0:14.2 | So let's call it what it is. |
| 0:15.4 | You're hacking media to confuse people to get attention, correct? |
| 0:20.2 | Sure. |
| 0:22.2 | This weekend startups is brought to you by lemon.io. |
| 0:27.1 | Hire pre-vetted remote developers and get 15% off your first four weeks of developer time at lemon.io slash twist. |
| 0:36.5 | CLA. |
| 0:39.5 | Innovation takes balance. |
| 0:44.3 | Our CPAs, consultants, and wealth advisors can help you get from startup to where you want to end up. |
| 0:45.4 | Get started now at cLA connect.com slash tech. |
| 0:50.6 | And dot tech. |
| 0:52.5 | Say it without saying it. Head to get get dot tech slash twist or your favorite registrar to |
| 0:58.5 | get a clean sharp dot tech domain today all right everybody welcome to this week and start us i'm jacanis |
| 1:05.2 | back home in austin texas had a great dinner last night with my team, my growing team. |
| 1:12.1 | I don't know how many people were up to, but, man, launch was growing with me again today. |
| 1:18.7 | Alex Wilhelm, you know, from TechCrunch, cautious optimism.com news. |
| 1:24.0 | Is that right? |
| 1:25.0 | Nailed it. |
| 1:25.5 | First try, Jason, I'm so proud. Thank you. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Jason Calacanis, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Jason Calacanis and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.