Cursor’s $9B Round, AI-Powered Toys & CloudNuro’s SaaS Fix | E2121
This Week in Startups
Jason Calacanis
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 6 May 2025
⏱️ 86 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today’s show: Cursor’s explosive growth, hitting $200M in ARR and a massive $9B valuation. They also explore the buzz around Magical Toys’ new AI-powered dinosaur, where LLMs meet playtime. The conversation turns to “vibe coding” and how AI dev tools are changing the way product teams build. Plus, Jason shares stories from his Formula 1 poker table, Uber’s latest autonomous vehicle partnerships get analyzed, and we bring you highlights from our Founder Fridays pitch showdown, featuring Kippy from Sydney and MomSub from Chicago. Stick around to hear how Cloud Neuro is tackling SaaS sprawl.
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Timestamps:
(0:00) Jason kicks off the show!
(3:52) Rise in popularity of F1 and Netflix's impact
(10:23) Uber stock, partnerships, and self-driving technology
(10:47) 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!
(13:50) Aurora Innovation's SPAC and Cursor's valuation discussion
(19:07) Revenue quality concerns for startups
(20:17) Lemon.io - Get 15% off your first 4 weeks of developer time at https://Lemon.io/twist
(21:37) User engagement versus churn in startups
(23:06) AnySphere's ARR and impact of faster development on tech
(30:29) Fidelity Private Shares℠ - Visit https://www.fidelityprivateshares.com! Mention our podcast and receive 20% off your first-year paid subscription.
(32:11) Anker's portable solar solutions and off-grid living innovations
(37:41) Jason's investment insights on Warner Brothers and Disney
(38:27) Skype's decline and the rise of Zoom and Microsoft Teams
(42:04) Founder Friday bracket final matchup and pitches
(51:08) Interview with Fateen Anam Raffid from Magical Toys
(59:24) Dino AI toy demonstration and future plans
(1:04:20) Interview on CloudNuro's SaaS spend management
(1:10:01) SaaS compliance, vendor-customer relationships, and AI spend management
(1:16:09) CloudNuro's data-driven foundation and AI governance
(1:18:46) Company growth, competitive landscape, and Chicago's entrepreneurial ecosystem*
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Links from episode:
Magical Toys: https://www.magicaltoys.com
CloudNuro: https://www.cloudnuro.ai/
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Follow Fateen:
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Follow Shyam:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shyam-kumar-7b18524/:*
Follow Lon:
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Follow Alex:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelm
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Follow Jason:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis
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Thank you to our partners:
(10:47) 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!
(20:17) Lemon.io - Get 15% off your first 4 weeks of developer time at https://Lemon.io/twist
(30:29) Fidelity Private Shares℠ - Visit https://www.fidelityprivateshares.com/ Mention our podcast and receive 20% off your first-year paid subscription.
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Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | That's really cool because when a client builds something, Alex, they have to explain their needs to somebody. |
| 0:05.9 | And then if they have to explain it to somebody, then they will misinterpret those things. |
| 0:10.7 | They have to go back and there's a loop, right? So you have a project manager sitting between the customer and the developers, maybe have a UX designer in there as well. And it's slow. |
| 0:19.0 | But if you're the customer and you're coding, you know exactly what you want, so you just build it. There is a significant chance that people |
| 0:25.2 | who are on the margins of doing development will learn how to do it. Just like you had designers who |
| 0:30.3 | didn't do UX. They just worked in Photoshop. They didn't work in Figma. And then they were like, |
| 0:34.6 | wait a second, this isn't so difficult. And then some of them learn JavaScript and how to do the front-end code. So that's what I think is more likely is you'll |
| 0:41.5 | see UX designers being able to vibe code and actually write code, ship code. You might see developers, |
| 0:46.4 | you know, some of them actually have dabbled in UX design, you know, and you get this like not just full stack developer which really means like the back end the front end |
| 0:54.1 | you might actually have a compression of design ux back end front end and just one person vibe codes |
| 1:01.5 | their way to excellence this weekend startups is brought to you by northwest registered agent starting |
| 1:07.4 | your business should be simple with northwest registered agent you can form your entire business identity in just 10 clicks and 10 minutes. |
| 1:13.3 | From LLC to trademarks, domains to custom websites, they've got you covered. |
| 1:17.1 | Get more privacy, more options, and more done, visit Northwest Registeredagent.com slash Twist today. |
| 1:22.1 | Limon.io. |
| 1:23.3 | Hire pre-vetted remote developers, get 15% off your first four weeks of developer time at lemon.io slash twist. |
| 1:29.5 | And Fidelity Private Shares. |
| 1:31.6 | If you want the all-in-one equity management platform, Fidelity Private Shares has you covered. |
| 1:35.7 | Visit FidelityPrivate shares.com. |
| 1:37.6 | Mentioned this podcast for 20% off your first year subscription. |
| 1:40.7 | Hey, everybody. Welcome back to this week and startups. |
| 1:42.4 | I'm your host, Jason Kelloggatt with him again, Alex Wilhelm at Alex on Twitter. And of course, Lon Harris, he is at Lonz on Twitter. |
... |
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