Why Your Company Should Own Its AI Model | E2278
This Week in Startups
Jason Calacanis
4.2 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 21 April 2026
⏱️ 77 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This Week In Startups is made possible by:
Quo - https://quo.com/TWiST Vanta -
https://vanta.com/twist
Pilot - https://pilot.com/twist Plaud -
https://Plaud.ai/twist
Today’s show:
*Eragon CEO Josh Sirota believes that you should “own your intelligence.” He demos a live enterprise AI operating system connecting email, Slack, calendar, and financial data into a single agentic layer that’s pre-trained to understand any business inside and out.
PLUS we’ve got IONA Drones founder Etienne Louvet, a first look at Moonshot’s Kimi K2.6, and a brand new Off Duty with JCal and Lon.
FULL SHOW NOTES ON NOTION: https://thisweekinstartups-docket.notion.site/TWiST-2278-SHOW-NOTES-34872ca918e380bd9c71e684ce2db7c9?source=copy_link
Guests :
Eragon: https://eragon.ai
Josh Sirota on X: https://x.com/joshua_sirota
IONA: https://ionadrones.com/
Etienne Louvet on X: https://x.com/etienneldva
Relevant Links
Eragon Seed Round coverage: https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/18/this-startup-wants-to-make-enterprise-software-look-more-like-a-prompt/
Neurometric: https://www.neurometric.ai/
Ollama model: https://ollama.com/
Orange Slice: https://www.orangeslice.ai/
Corgi Insurance: https://www.corgi.insure/
Slash Financial: https://www.slash.com/
The Syndicate: https://thesyndicate.com/
FAA Part 108 Explained: https://pilotinstitute.com/part-108-explained/
Zipline: https://www.zipline.com/
Google Wing: https://wing.com/
Joby Aviation: https://www.jobyaviation.com/
Enterprise Ireland: https://www.enterprise-ireland.com/
Éire Composites: https://www.eirecomposites.com/
Kimi K2.6 blog post: https://www.kimi.com/blog/kimi-k2-6
Kimi K2 series on GitHub: https://github.com/moonshotai/Kimi-K2
NVIDIA GB300 NVL72 work station: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/data-center/gb300-nvl72/
Timestamps:
0:00 Josh from Eragon AI joins the show
2:01 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations — interviews, meetings, calls — you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at https://Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!
5:07 Why founders should own and control their data sets
8:33 What is a "company world model?"
9:48 Quo (formerly OpenPhone) - Quo gives you a clean, modern way to handle every customer call, text, and thread all in one place. Try it free at https://quo.com/TWiST
11:32 Eragon demo
15:55 Giving agents their own bank accounts
19:07 Inside Eragon's first partnerships
20:14 Vanta - Get $1000 off your SOC 2 at https://www.vanta.com/twist
25:50 How does Eragon make money?
29:11 Pilot - Visit https://www.pilot.com/twist and get $1,200 off your first year.
39:33 Etienne Louvet of Iona Drones joins the show
42:37 What is FAA's Part 108?
47:13 How innovation in drones impacts the aviation industry
50:26 Working with Enterprise Ireland
58:28 Jason attended the Breakthrough Awards
1:04:10 Doug Liman's AI-powered "Bitcoin" movie
1:09:09 "Love Story" on FX and "Dust Bunny" on HBO Max
1:13:10 Jason's love of tinned fish
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Follow Lon:
Follow Alex:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelm
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis
Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/
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
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Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hey, can we just have a better CEO than Jason? |
| 0:03.8 | Can we have a better board of directors than your board of directors because they have all information? |
| 0:09.5 | You're saying now you're building that, Josh. |
| 0:11.5 | Yeah, exactly. |
| 0:12.5 | What we're calling this is a company world model to make that vision true, an algorithm that can actually have the right reward functions. |
| 0:20.0 | We can get up to 20 parcels in the drone. |
| 0:22.6 | 40 plus pounds. |
| 0:24.6 | Holy cow. |
| 0:25.6 | If you're already doing logistics, you could just add drones to your fleet. |
| 0:29.6 | This is kind of like going from level two autonomy to level four. |
| 0:33.6 | Yes, exactly. |
| 0:34.6 | It's happening, folks. |
| 0:35.6 | This week in startups is brought to you by Pilot. |
| 0:39.0 | Focus on your product. |
| 0:40.6 | Let Pilot handle your bookkeeping. |
| 0:42.3 | Pilot provides the most reliable accounting, CFO, and tax services for startups and small |
| 0:47.4 | businesses. |
| 0:48.1 | Head to pilot.com slash twist and get $1,200 off your first year. |
| 0:53.2 | Vanta. |
| 0:53.8 | Compliance and security shouldn't be a deal breaker for startups to win new business. Vanta makes it easy for companies to get a SOC2 report fast. |
| 1:01.4 | Get $1,000 off for a limited time at vanta.com slash twist. |
| 1:06.5 | And, quo. Quo, formally open phone, gives you a clean, modern way to handle every customer call, text, and thread all in one place. |
... |
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