The Strip Mining Era of LLMs—And Why It’s About to End | E2141
This Week in Startups
Jason Calacanis
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 21 June 2025
⏱️ 75 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today’s show:
AI has been feasting on the open web—but is the free lunch over? In this explosive episode, @Jason and @alex call out OpenAI and others for “strip mining” the internet’s content without paying creators. As lawsuits pile up and new defenses like AI-robots.txt emerge, a reckoning looms. Will AI be forced to pay for its training data? Dive into the legal, ethical, and business implications—including Substack’s stance, Cloudflare’s firewall, and Perplexity’s lawsuits—in what may be a turning point for the future of the web.
Timestamps:
(0:00) Concerns about AI data sourcing and sustainability(1:43) Recent travels and airline industry insights(5:28) Meta's AI strategy and market competition
(10:20) LinkedIn Jobs - Post your first job for free at https://www.linkedin.com/twist(11:50) Meta's financial moves and AI focus(17:08) Midjourney's advancements in video AI
(20:30) Northwest Registered Agent. Form your entire business identity in just 10 clicks and 10 minutes. Get more privacy, more options, and more done—visit northwestregisteredagent.com/twist today!(21:33) Twist 500 companies and Cloudflare's anti-AI scraping tool(27:09) AI scraping: creator impact and regulation debate
(30:18) Retool - Visit https://www.retool.com/twist and try it out today.(31:23) BBC lawsuit and Perplexity's AI challenges(35:44) Office hours with Giram Taitana of Doctours(42:55) Medical tourism: Psilocybin, IVF, and consumer trust(49:33) Design's role in trust and safety for medical platforms(55:57) Doctours' fundraising and insurance strategies(1:00:08) SEO and domain name tips for startups(1:02:50) Tesla's robo taxi launch and implications(1:08:13) Andy Jassy on AI's impact on employment(1:10:09) Discussing global job displacement and China's youth unemployment(1:14:53) The gig economy in the age of advanced AI
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 Alex:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelm
Follow Jason:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis
Thank you to our partners:
(10:20) LinkedIn Jobs - Post your first job for free at https://www.linkedin.com/twist
(20:30) Northwest Registered Agent. Form your entire business identity in just 10 clicks and 10 minutes. Get more privacy, more options, and more done—visit northwestregisteredagent.com/twist today!(30:18) Retool - Visit https://www.retool.com/twist and try it out 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 | I noticed that on Open AI, at least, the sources are kind of buried now. |
| 0:04.5 | They don't put them up prominently enough. |
| 0:06.9 | I think they should say, you know, we collected this information from this website before |
| 0:11.4 | they present the data. |
| 0:12.6 | Honestly, I think everybody should block these tools. |
| 0:16.1 | Yeah. |
| 0:16.4 | And they should en masse sue these LLMs for a licensing fee. |
| 0:20.3 | This is all good for the industry. |
| 0:21.8 | The industry starts thinking, |
| 0:23.7 | needs to start thinking about sustainability, |
| 0:25.8 | not just doing what they're doing now, |
| 0:27.5 | which is strip mining. |
| 0:28.9 | The strip mining by LLMs is going to just destroy the environment, |
| 0:33.4 | and then there'll be nothing left for everybody else. |
| 0:36.2 | Stop taking the calcite from Gorbon, |
| 0:39.1 | destroying the planet, or the khyber crystals, you know. |
| 0:42.5 | It's almost like overfishing. |
| 0:44.5 | They're overfishing. |
| 0:45.8 | They're going to take every piece of cod out of the ocean |
| 0:48.3 | and then they're going to wonder where the cod went. |
| 0:50.4 | Just take 10% of the cod, you know? |
| 0:52.1 | Like you don't have to take 100% and maybe, you know, leave whatever the cod eat, you know, like you gotta be sustainable. |
... |
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.