This Week in Startups

One shotted by Opus 4.7 The full prompt: "Make a website for This Week in AI podcast with great branding."

This robot did something unexpected. A 1x robot grabbed a Post-it note off the wall and read it out loud. This is not in the training data. When asked to do it again, it failed. That's the thing about general intelligence: the robot thought for itself. Just not twice in a row. @BerntBornich @1x_tech

Original video by YouTube's @AnyTechnology: youtube.com/watch?v=1SgGfM…

What's the TAM on snake walking machines?

From @jaltma's Uncapped podcast. Watch the full episode here. cc: @Max, @Instacart, $CART, @Jason youtube.com/watch?v=rENzUO…

Instacart had pull from day one. But real product-market fit took years.

@ThisWeeknAI I love This Week in A.I.I.

Opus 4.6 vs. Opus 4.7 for website design: 4.6 looks like AI slop. 4.7 looks like it was designed by a $20k team. The leap in quality is insane.

@maruchikim Very cool tech. Want to come on our pod tomrorow and show this off? We'd love to have you.

Full paper available here: dl.acm.org/doi/epdf/10.11…

what if your earbuds could see? meet VueBuds: tiny cameras at each ear, streaming low-resolution images over Bluetooth, with an on-device vision language model to understand what's around you. capstone of my PhD 🎓 #CHI2026 honorable mention

Only Bieber could pull off watching YouTube on stage at Coachella. Some might call it lazy. Jason thinks it only works because Bieber is an OG YouTuber. The whole performance was a meta commentary on his career and a nostalgic moment for his fans.

@rahulchhabra07 @vkhosla @WIRED Hey! Wanna come on the pod? DM's are open!

our joint interview with lead investor @vkhosla is now live on @WIRED. thank you for covering our story. wired.com/story/this-bea…

you can now control things with your brain. literally. we're building the most wearable BCI on the planet, with @sabicap, backed by @khoslaventures @accel @initialized & @kevinweil. we collected the world’s largest neural dataset and trained the most capable Brain Foundation Model. then we invented a new class of biosensors powered by custom ASICs. type without typing. click without clicking. a cap that lets your brain do the work. we’re sabi.

@Jason 😂

If you’re in footwear, pivot to renting GPUs

Thanks to our partners @PLAUDAI. If your work depends on conversations — interviews, meetings, calls — you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!

Making a game is now as simple as typing a prompt. Watch the AI cook up a game in just 60 seconds! You can Iterate instantly by prompting it, "add guns" or whatever you like. You can do this for other people’s games as well!

Thanks to our partners at @render! Go to 2273 to apply for the Render Startup Program. You’ll get anywhere from $500 to $100,000 in free credits.

Imagine TikTok, but instead of scrolling through videos your feed is just a bunch of games! Meet Nanogram, you don't just scroll, you play. If you get bored, you swipe up to the next game. You can even build your own games with AI in just 90 seconds. This is the future of doomscrolling and we’re COOKED!

Thanks to our partners @everybanking! For all of your incorporation, banking, payroll, benefits, accounting, taxes or other back-office administration needs, visit every.io.

Building humanoid robots that live in your isn’t just about doing labor. You have to make them so that people actually feel comfortable with them walking around your home. @BerntBornich, CEO of @1x_tech, explains why humanoid robots like NEO are being designed for more than just laundry. They’re emotionally intelligent both in terms of their physical appearance and how they act.

Thanks to our partners at @LinkedIn! Post your job for free at linkedIn.com/twist then promote it to get access to LinkedIn Jobs’ new AI assistant.

Building a world-class humanoid robots is about more than just AI, it’s about the Machine building the Machine. Here, @BerntBornich, CEO of @1x_tech, explains how 1X manages research, development, AI, production, all from a single facility and why this is their ultimate competitive advantage.

"Something that would have taken me a week to build now takes 90 seconds." The co-creators of Nanogram create and share an instant 3D Flappy Bird clone, based on a simple text prompt. But will users play games the same way they scroll TikToks and Reels? For every 100 likes, they're seeing 30–50 shares. That’s nearly 1-in-2. Dig into the business model, and the advertising potential, on today’s TWIST. 00:00 Intro 0:59 Nanogram co-creators Albert and Boris join the show 3:42 Nanogram is TikTok for casual AI-generated games 4:27 Building Nanogram with Google Gemini 5:49 Draper and Associates: draper.vc 6:11 Integrating ads into the game feed 7:36 Roblox: roblox.com World of Warcraft: worldofwarcraft.blizzard.com 8:25 Building in New York 9:07 Jason is obsessed with the Staples Baddie @blivxx" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">tiktok.com/@blivxx 10:12 LinkedIn Jobs - Hire right, the first time. Post your first job and get $100 off towards your job post at LinkedIn.com/twist 20:36 Every.io - For all of your incorporation, banking, payroll, benefits, accounting, taxes or other back-office administration needs, visit every.io 21:40 1X CEO and founder Bernt Børnich joins the show x.com/BerntBornich 22:31 Designing robots to actually live around people 26:30 Teaching NEO about movement in the physical world 29:00 TechCrunch coverage: techcrunch.com/2026/01/13/neo… 29:58 Render: Find out why 5 million developers are already using the all-in-one cloud platform, Render. Go to render.com/twist and apply for the Render Startup Program to get $500-$100,000 in free credits, depending on your stage and backers. 31:04 Moving beyond training data to true general intelligence 33:17 Ensuring NEO pursues the safest possible path 34:19 Why are world models so important? 41:51 1X World Model Challenge on GitHub: github.com/1x-technologie… 45:14 Robots need to train on a lot of data… Where does it all come from? 50:14 Manufacturing NEO from raw materials in San Carlos 56:32 Robots building robots cc: @Jason, @Lons, @Alex 🎥 Watch the full episode here 👇