EV Truck Startup Nikola Runs Out of Juice | E2087
This Week in Startups
Jason Calacanis
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 20 February 2025
⏱️ 67 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This Week in Startups is brought to you by…
Gusto. Get three months free when you run your first payroll at http://gusto.com/twist
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Atlassian. Head to https://www.atlassian.com/software/startups to see if you qualify for 50 free seats for 12 months.
Today’s show: Jason and Lon Harris cover Nikola’s Chapter 11 and how founders can avoid the same mistake, Superhuman AI’s new features, Mira Murati’s Thinking Machines and where Sam Altman went wrong holding onto top talent, plus much more!
Timestamps:
(0:00) Episode teaser(1:26) Introduction to startup news and trends(2:47) Bill Ackman's J trade and Herbalife controversy(5:24) Comparing trading strategies: Jason vs. Pelosi(9:49) Gusto. Get three months free when you run your first payroll at http://gusto.com/twist(11:29) HP's acquisition of Humane and its significance(13:52) Challenges facing the AI industry(20:30) Lemon.io. Get 15% off your first 4 weeks of developer time at https://Lemon.io/twist(21:47) OpenAI veterans launch a new venture(28:09) Chamath's venture into high stakes poker(29:35) Atlassian. Head to https://www.atlassian.com/software/startups to see if you qualify for 50 free seats for 12 months.(36:37) Nikola's Chapter 11 filing and securities fraud(48:10) The upside of failing as a founder in the U.S.(50:24) Superhuman introduces AI-powered email features(51:58) Preview of upcoming guests on the podcast(53:03) Key characteristics of successful founders(56:21) Play-along: Guess the fake startup(1:04:12) Movie trilogy rankings: Superman, Star Wars, Terminator
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Check out these past Guess The Fake Startups segments:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKP2iiF1oYI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhnOXuGnh14
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueazpyGOgcc
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Thank you to our partners:
(9:49) Gusto. Get three months free when you run your first payroll at http://gusto.com/twist(20:30) Lemon.io. Get 15% off your first 4 weeks of developer time at https://Lemon.io/twist(29:35) Atlassian. Head to https://www.atlassian.com/software/startups to see if you qualify for 50 free seats for 12 months.
Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara,Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta,Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland
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Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | I knew Milton was a fraud. |
| 0:02.3 | You know, I got a pretty good eye for this. |
| 0:04.1 | There are people who are delusional and, I would say, not thoughtful. |
| 0:11.5 | And then there are people who are delusional and competent. |
| 0:15.3 | And I love me the latter. |
| 0:17.2 | But incompetent delusional people, I mean, they just incinerate money. |
| 0:23.1 | Competent delusional people change the world. |
| 0:26.0 | And they might incinerate some money. |
| 0:27.8 | But, you know, if you think, hey, I'm going to put a computer on everybody's desk and you're |
| 0:31.9 | broke aids and you're competent and you make good software and you're aggressive and you |
| 0:36.4 | understand distribution and whatever you know like |
| 0:39.2 | you might just make it happen and that's what we do all day long is venture capital we're looking |
| 0:44.0 | for those delusional another word would be ambitious competent people this weekend startups is |
| 0:51.0 | brought to you by gusto gusto is easy online payroll benefits in HR built for modern small businesses. |
| 0:57.4 | Get three months free when you run your first payroll at gusto.com slash twist. |
| 1:01.4 | Lemon.io. Get access to Lemon Hire, a platform with more than 80,000 pre-vetted engineers |
| 1:06.4 | that you can interview within 48 hours. Get $2,000 off your first hire at lemon.io slash hire today. |
| 1:12.7 | And Atlasian, from MVP to IPO, Atlassian for startups provides your team the right tools to plan, track, and collaborate on work. |
| 1:20.6 | Head to atlacian.com slash software slash startups to see if you qualify for 50 free seats for 12 months. |
| 1:26.2 | All right, everybody, welcome back to this week in startups. |
| 1:28.9 | We go live three days a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday. |
| 1:31.4 | And this week we did Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday with me. |
... |
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