Decart makes AI faster, Lume teaches lamps to fold laundry | E2166
This Week in Startups
Jason Calacanis
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 18 August 2025
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today’s show:
We’re back with two insightful new TWiST founder interviews.
First up: Dean Leitersdorf of Decart tells us about squeezing maximum productivity out of your GPUs. But it’s not all talk: he also shows us the incredible open world model that can magically transform live footage.
THEN! Jason and Alex chat with Syncere AI founder Aaron Tan about Lume, his robotic lamp device that went viral for folding laundry. Hear why Aaron thinks the future of robotics is not necessarily humanoid, and all about his future plans for the Lume arms.
Timestamps:
(0:00) Alex introduces our TwiST 500 interviews
(02:27) TWiST 500 Interview #1: Dean Leitersdorf, CEO and Founder of Decart
(04:37) Setting out to build a “kilo-corn,” a trillion dollar company
(06:27) How making AI much faster opens up a world of new opportunities
(09:48) OpenPhone - Streamline and scale your customer communications with OpenPhone. Get 20% off your first 6 months at https://www.openphone.com/twist
(11:00) Why Dean thinks chatbots are the interface of the future
(17:24) How Decart builds and trains its models more efficiently (and for less money)
(20:01) Netsuite - Download the ebook CFO’s Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at https://www.netsuite.com/twist
(21:14) Show Continues…
(24:36) Interview #2: Aaron Tan of Syncere AI
(25:13) Behind-the-scenes of that viral Lume “robot lamp folding laundry” video
(30:23) Stripe Startups - Stripe Startups offers early-stage, venture-backed startups access to Stripe fee credits and more. Apply today on stripe.com/startups.
(31:25) Moving beyond laundry: what else these Lume robots do?
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Check out the TWIST500: https://www.twist500.com
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Follow Alex:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelm
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis
Thank you to our partners:
(09:48) OpenPhone - Streamline and scale your customer communications with OpenPhone. Get 20% off your first 6 months at https://www.openphone.com/twist
(20:01) Netsuite - Download the ebook CFO’s Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at https://www.netsuite.com/twist
(30:23) Stripe Startups - Stripe Startups offers early-stage, venture-backed startups access to Stripe fee credits and more. Apply today on stripe.com/startups.
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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Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com
Subscribe to the Founder University Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@founderuniversity1916
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Mirage is the only real-time video model in existence today. Even the big tech still don't have it, except for Google. Google does have this, but even the other big tech, as far as we know, don't have this. And it's challenging to build because you have to build a completely different model on the algorithmic side. You're training actually a different model. It's lots of algorithmic mathematical challenges. And at the same time, you have to write a bunch of assembly code for GPUs. |
| 0:23.3 | Like, all this was written in PtX, it was assembly for GPUs to actually get it to execute like this efficiently. |
| 0:30.6 | This Week in Startups is brought to you by Stripe Startups. |
| 0:34.9 | Stripe Startups offers early stage venture-backed startups access to Stripe fee credits, |
| 0:39.9 | expert insights, and a focused community of builders. |
| 0:43.8 | Apply today on stripe.com slash startups. |
| 0:48.1 | NetSuite. |
| 0:49.0 | The business landscape is very chaotic right now. |
| 0:52.0 | That's why you need NetSuite by Oracle. Download the CFO's guide to |
| 0:56.4 | AI and machine learning for free at netsuite.com slash twist. And open phone. Create business phone |
| 1:05.5 | numbers for you and your team that work through an app on your smartphone or desktop. Twist |
| 1:10.5 | listeners can get an extra 20% |
| 1:12.2 | off any plan for your first six months at openphone.com slash twist. Hey everybody, welcome back to |
| 1:19.6 | Twist. This is Alex and today we have two absolutely amazing interviews for you. First, we're talking to |
| 1:25.3 | the folks over at Descartes AI. You may recall that they recently |
| 1:29.0 | raised $100 million at a $3.1 billion valuation. Quite a lot of money. What are they building? |
| 1:34.7 | Well, Descartes got its start actually working on GPU optimization and since then has been |
| 1:39.4 | working on world models. This comes in the form of Mirage and Oasis. And if that does strike a |
| 1:45.2 | battle, that's because I showed off to Cart's Oasis World Models on the show last November. I've |
| 1:50.8 | been dying to talk to the company about what they're building and where AI is going. So stay |
| 1:55.2 | tuned. It's an amazing chat. Then after that, Jason and I are talking to the folks behind |
| 1:59.9 | sincere AI. Don't know that company? Well, you actually do. They're the company behind that viral video of the lamps that's next to your bed and then turn into robot arms and then do your laundry for you. Well, we were really curious how far along is that product? What are the margins? What's it going to cost? when's it coming? And also, what are they going to build next? |
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