Ask Jason: AI Extinction, Grok's Rogue Meme Coin & Weed Farms as Data Centers | E2337

This Week in Startups · · 1 hr 11 min

Jason Calacanis tackles AI extinction fears, the Grok memecoin incident, and why old cannabis grow facilities could become distributed data centers.

This Week in Startups host · 7 picks MQ Michael Que guest
Watch the episode 1 hr 11 min · YouTube

The gist

  1. AI doomsday claims lack a credible attack vector, and frontier labs already build in safeguards that make runaway AI less plausible than the narrative suggests.
    Grok Claude
  2. The Grok memecoin incident generated over $300M in volume and shows why permissionless token creation needs multi-signature verification and KYC before launch.

What they recommend · 7 picks

Grok Main topic

X's AI chatbot developed by Elon Musk's team, integrated with the X platform.

"That's why I love Grockbot — it doesn't give you that 800 'well, maybe a better way to do this' responses. It just goes and does it and it's very intuitive. Claude's like 'I can't download that video,' and Grok's like 'yolo, hold my beer, I'll get the video..."
This Week in Startups ▶ Play at 28:05

What This Week in Startups uses it for: Agentic tasks like downloading videos, executing actions without requiring step-by-step permission

36 creators recommend Grok, including Naval Ravikant, Ali Abdaal, Jason Calacanis.

17:56
QQQ Finance & investing

"Might I suggest a dividend paying ETF or QQQ or a Vanguard fund that is low fee — just put your money in that. And if you want to buy a couple of tokens on the side, fine, but y..."

This Week in Startups ·3 creators recommend it·This Week in Startups's finance & investing →
18:01
Vanguard Finance & investing

"Might I suggest a dividend paying ETF or QQQ or a Vanguard fund that is low fee — just put your money in that."

This Week in Startups ·7 creators recommend it·This Week in Startups's finance & investing →
6:47
Claude AI tools

"Have you ever tried to get Claude to download a YouTube video? It's like, 'I can't do that for you, sir.' I'd like you to order me this ticket on United — it'll find you the fli..."

This Week in Startups ·250 creators recommend it·This Week in Startups's AI tools →

Also mentioned

11:15 Tesla · "I submitted a question actually through video while Tesla self-driving was driving me around."
12:44 Coinbase · "The largest regulated exchange in the United States, Coinbase, listed this alongside Bitcoin, Ethereum,..."
15:50 Robinhood · "Just like when you open a Robinhood account or you open up a Stripe account, they now ask you to take a..."
15:52 Stripe · "Just like when you open a Robinhood account or you open up a Stripe account, they now ask you to take a..."
27:32 Cursor · "The feature that Cursor plus Grockbot really figured out was having a computer, a persistent computer..."
32:20 Gemini · "And Gemini is saying a lead dog. A lead dog runs at the very front of the dog slay team guiding the other..."

Ads in this episode

CLA, Conservation Fund, Quo. They're paid, so we keep them out of the picks above.

See what This Week in Startups recommends without being paid →
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