70mph Drone Deliveries, 125% Tariffs & What $10M Exits Really Mean | E2109
This Week in Startups
Jason Calacanis
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 10 April 2025
⏱️ 67 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today’s show: Jason, Alex, and Lon talk about stories reshaping the startup world: 70mph drone deliveries are officially live in Dallas, with Zipline and Walmart promising groceries “as the crow flies” in under 5 minutes. Meanwhile, Trump slaps a 125% tariff on China and hints at a global economic shakeup — Jason warns founders to brace for layoffs and bankruptcies unless they’ve got a Plan B and C. Finally, a UK startup sells for $450M and VCs barely break even… but the founders walk with $20M. Jason explains how small exits create the most dangerous kind of founder: the one who never needs another check. Plus Office Hours with Orchestra CEO Sergie Poe.
Timestamps:
(0:00) Jason kicks off the show!(1:37) Tariffs, market volatility, and startup implications(5:33) Startup resilience: Layoffs and bankruptcies(10:35) Brex. Get the business account trusted by 1 in 3 US startups at https://www.brex.com/banking-solutions(12:10) Globalization and startup ecosystems(13:52) Recent startup deals and Zipline's expansion(19:56) Vanta - Get $1000 off your SOC 2 at https://www.vanta.com/twist(21:16) Zipline drones and Marquese Brownlee’s review(24:31) 70MPH Drones and the future of ddeliveries(30:05) Northwest Registered Agent. Form your entire business identity in just 10 clicks and 10 minutes. Get more privacy, more options, and more done—visit https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twist today!(31:51) Founder FridaysPitch Madness matchups(33:35) LifeStack and Burble pitches and discussion(43:26) Arcana and Tactun pitches and discussion(50:12) Summer West Whiskey and MomSub pitches and evaluation(56:36) Orchestra's office hours: Challenges and strategies
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(30:05) Northwest Registered Agent. Form your entire business identity in just 10 clicks and 10 minutes. Get more privacy, more options, and more done—visit https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twist today!
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is incredible. These things probably fly easily 30, 40, 50 miles an hour. |
| 0:05.0 | 70 miles an hour, the guy says in the video. And so they're based on how long most delivery routes are. |
| 0:12.2 | They say three to five minute deliveries for almost everybody in Dallas. |
| 0:16.7 | If you're, yeah, going from a Walmart. And, you know, we have this expression here in Texas as the crow flies. |
| 0:24.8 | Yeah. |
| 0:25.5 | I don't know if you've heard this. |
| 0:27.3 | It's also in Tennessee. |
| 0:28.4 | I think it's in Tennessee. |
| 0:29.1 | Groceries, that old-fashioned term, groceries. |
| 0:31.9 | But as being, it's a word, groceries, okay? |
| 0:35.6 | It's just a word. |
| 0:36.5 | I love that. |
| 0:37.1 | It's like one of my favorite Trump clips of all time. |
| 0:39.8 | I don't know. |
| 0:40.1 | It's a simple word. |
| 0:41.0 | Simple old-fashioned word groceries. |
| 0:46.6 | This week in startups is brought to you by Brex. |
| 0:50.0 | The financial stack founders can bank on. |
| 0:52.2 | Unlike traditional business banking solutions, |
| 0:54.3 | Brex has no minimums and no transaction fees, and you can get 20 times the standard FDIC protection. |
| 1:00.1 | Get the business account trusted by one in three U.S. startups at Brex.com slash banking dash solutions. |
| 1:06.2 | Vanta. Compliance and security shouldn't be a deal breaker for startups to win new business. |
... |
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