TITLE
Jason Calacanis and Lon Harris of This Week in Startups explain their AI-assisted newsletter workflow, then debate OpenAI's $1.25 trillion valuation, Starlink Mobile, AI safety audits and California's proposed billionaire tax.
The gist
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Lon uses a Grok bot to find founder tips, brainstorms with Claude and builds graphics in Claude Design, but writes every newsletter article himself.
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Jason says OpenAI's reported $1.25 trillion valuation, about 30 times its roughly $50 billion revenue run rate, looks fairly priced for a 10-year hold.
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Jason thinks Starlink Mobile, built on at least 80,000 cell sites plus satellites, could cut a family's $400 monthly phone and internet bill toward $200.
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Jason predicts California's one-time 5% billionaire tax will pass despite 23% Polymarket odds, and says Meta's deal to keep Zuckerberg will help it pass.
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For off duty picks, Jason recommends the 100-page novella A Short Stay in Hell, and Lon recommends Richard Socher's The Eureka Machine on AI-driven science.
This Week in Startups uses it
"I may have mentioned I have a Grok bot: things to watch, read, and consume or travel, whatever, like a media bot."
▶ Play at 1:31:2534 creators recommend it, including Jason Calacanis, Claire Vo, and Riley Brown.
See all on the Grok page"Then we take it, I sort of run it through AI as a brainstorming layer. I usually use Claude. Opus is ideal for this. You could use Sonnet... I don't let Claude write anything... I let Claude kind of roughly assemble it. And then I take the suggestions, I workshop it with Claud..."
▶ Play at 10:33
This Week in Startups uses it
"So here's what I'd like to do with this is I'd like to make sure it has a subscription to the paid version and is ingesting it... Claude reads everything... I want to figure out a way to get Claude the feedback. So, how many likes, how many comments, and if anybody hit reply t..."
▶ Play at 15:43217 creators recommend it, including Riley Brown, Chris Koerner, and Peter Yang.
See all on the Claude page"Obviously, Jason and I worked on a style guide. So, that was the first step. Claude Design. You go in there, you bounce ideas around. I like this. I don't like this. I like this font... And eventually you get to a point where it's like this is a good sort of style format that ..."
▶ Play at 12:5711 creators recommend it, including Peter Yang, Claire Vo, and Liam Ottley.
See all on the Claude Design page
This Week in Startups uses it
"Starlink will get to, you know, I regularly get 200 or 300 megabits down and, whatever, slightly less going up. It's fine... they were like, 'Yeah, we just want people to think this kicks ass.' And it does. Period. Full stop."
▶ Play at 40:4920 creators recommend it, including Joe Rogan, Blake Scholl, and Alex Wissner-Gross.
See all on the Starlink page
This Week in Startups recommends it
"All right, I have an off duty. This is a 100-page novella, A Short Stay in Hell, Steven L. Peck... It's 100 pages. I'm trying to read a little bit more... Anyway, I really enjoyed it. You should read it, Lon."
▶ Play at 1:31:14"I read Richard Socher's book, our This Week in AI guest... The Eureka Machine... It's really good. It very clearly lays out how AI is actually going to make science and medicine... It's not so abstract. He really walks you through the whole process... So highly recommend it."
▶ Play at 1:32:24What they recommend · 8 picks
AI tools
4 picks · Lon Harris and This Week in Startups
"Then we take it, I sort of run it through AI as a brainstorming layer. I usually use Claude. Opus is ideal for this. You could use Sonnet... I don't let Claude write anything......"
"Obviously, Jason and I worked on a style guide. So, that was the first step. Claude Design. You go in there, you bounce ideas around. I like this. I don't like this. I like this..."
"So here's what I'd like to do with this is I'd like to make sure it has a subscription to the paid version and is ingesting it... Claude reads everything... I want to figure out..."
Books
2 picks · Lon Harris and This Week in Startups
"I read Richard Socher's book, our This Week in AI guest... The Eureka Machine... It's really good. It very clearly lays out how AI is actually going to make science and medicine..."
"All right, I have an off duty. This is a 100-page novella, A Short Stay in Hell, Steven L. Peck... It's 100 pages. I'm trying to read a little bit more... Anyway, I really enjoy..."
Other picks
2 picks · This Week in Startups
"Yeah, great dim sum place. I love Yank Sing. Yank Sing, get the duck. Get the soup dumplings."
"Starlink will get to, you know, I regularly get 200 or 300 megabits down and, whatever, slightly less going up. It's fine... they were like, 'Yeah, we just want people to think ..."
This Week in Startups
5 picks · host
"Yeah, great dim sum place. I love Yank Sing. Yank Sing, get the duck. Get the soup dumplings."
"Starlink will get to, you know, I regularly get 200 or 300 megabits down and, whatever, slightly less going up. It's fine... they were like, 'Yeah, we just want people to think ..."
"All right, I have an off duty. This is a 100-page novella, A Short Stay in Hell, Steven L. Peck... It's 100 pages. I'm trying to read a little bit more... Anyway, I really enjoy..."
Lon Harris
3 picks · guest
"Then we take it, I sort of run it through AI as a brainstorming layer. I usually use Claude. Opus is ideal for this. You could use Sonnet... I don't let Claude write anything......"
"I read Richard Socher's book, our This Week in AI guest... The Eureka Machine... It's really good. It very clearly lays out how AI is actually going to make science and medicine..."
"Obviously, Jason and I worked on a style guide. So, that was the first step. Claude Design. You go in there, you bounce ideas around. I like this. I don't like this. I like this..."
Also mentioned
Ads in this episode
Plaud, Exa, ZoomInfo, GoDaddy, Rippling, Sentry. They're paid, so we keep them out of the picks above.
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