M&A Mania, Palantir Meme Crash + Office Hours with Hookhub | E2105
This Week in Startups
Jason Calacanis
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 1 April 2025
⏱️ 77 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today’s show: Circle gears up for its IPO and the stablecoin wars heat up, Palantir’s meme stock status gets a reality check, and they riff on a possible Uber + DoorDash merger and whether AI should train on Substack content. They react to Sequoia partner Andrew Reed’s inside take on fund dynamics, laugh at a brutal VC meme, and wrap with “Office Hours” featuring Caylee Harrington, founder of Hookhub — the Airbnb for RV parking — to talk vanlife, growth, and building in an unsexy market.
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Timestamps:
(0:00) Alex and Jason kicks off the show!
(1:29) Palantir's stock and market dynamics
(5:43) Meme stocks and reversion to the mean
(6:57) X and XAI merger
(10:01) Squarespace - TWiST listeners: use code TWIST to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain: https://www.Squarespace.com/TWIST
(12:05) M&A trends in tech and AI content acquisitions
(17:22) Valuation strategies for acquisitions
(22:05) Oracle - TWiST listeners can try OCI and save up to 50% on your cloud bill at https://www.oracle.com/twist
(23:31) Circle's IPO and stablecoin regulations
(30:46) Fidelity Private Shares - Visit https://www.fidelityprivateshares.com! Mention our podcast and receive 20% off your first-year paid subscription.
(32:26) Crypto community and anti-money laundering in stablecoins
(37:43) IPO and SPAC updates in tech
(41:20) Deep tech investment risks and lessons from SPACs
(44:03) Hookhub's journey and RV market insights
(49:27) Growth and challenges in RV market
(52:01) Hookhub's social media and content strategy
(58:48) Hookhub's investor pitch and growth strategy
(1:04:11) Van life business model potential
(1:06:16) Sequoia's internal culture and investment strategy
(1:13:03) Sequoia vs. Andreessen Horowitz and VC indexing
(1:15:32) Venture capital humor and closing remarks
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Subscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.com
Check out the TWIST500: https://www.twist500.com
Subscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcp
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Links from the show:
Hookhub: https://www.hookhub.co/
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Follow Caylee:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariano-apodaca-45b07a16a/
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Follow Alex:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelm
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Follow Jason:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis
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Thank you to our partners:
(10:01) Squarespace - TWiST listeners: use code TWIST to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain: https://www.Squarespace.com/TWIST
(22:05) Oracle - TWiST listeners can try OCI and save up to 50% on your cloud bill at https://www.oracle.com/twist
(30:46) Fidelity Private Shares - Visit https://www.fidelityprivateshares.com! Mention our podcast and receive 20% off your first-year paid subscription.
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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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Check out Jason’s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis
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Follow TWiST:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartups
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekin
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartups
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartups
Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com
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Subscribe to the Founder University Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@founderuniversity1916
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | I'm going to throw some out there. |
| 0:00.9 | You love talking about Uber and DoorDash kind of joining up. |
| 0:03.8 | All right. |
| 0:04.1 | Instead of paying for Reddit, which, by the way, 18.8 billion today. |
| 0:07.4 | So what, 25 to take it off the table, probably, Jason? |
| 0:10.3 | Yeah, you got a 30% premium when you take a company, yeah, maybe even 50% sometimes |
| 0:15.0 | because it spikes when the rumor comes out and then you have to beat that number after it. |
| 0:19.4 | Yeah. |
| 0:19.7 | So call it 22. I don't know, |
| 0:21.2 | three billion. Sure. Or, or you could buy substack, right? But yeah, no, everyone's going to freak out. |
| 0:27.1 | Oh my God, don't train against my data. So here's what you do. You buy substack and then you tell |
| 0:30.5 | everyone you can keep your current deal with substack, no training off your data. We're taking a 10% cut. But if you let us train off of your substack, |
| 0:37.8 | no cut at all. Yeah, or how about if you let us train against it, we'll give you |
| 0:41.5 | 110% of whatever your scriptural revenue is. So you got a million and a subscription revenue. |
| 0:46.3 | We'll give you 100K on top of it if you publish on this regular schedule and we like your content. |
| 0:51.7 | So yeah, that's a great idea. This weekend startups is brought to you by |
| 0:55.8 | Squarespace. Turn your idea into a new website. Go to Squarespace.com slash twist for a free trial. |
| 1:02.0 | When you're ready to launch, use offer code twist to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. |
| 1:06.7 | Fidelity Private Shares. If you want the all-in-one equity management platform, Fidelity Private Shares has you |
| 1:11.8 | covered. Visit FidelityPrivate shares.com and mention this podcast for 20% off your first year subscription. |
| 1:17.8 | And Oracle. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, or OCI, is a single platform for your infrastructure database |
| 1:23.6 | application development and AI needs. Save up to 50% on your cloud bill at Oracle.com slash twist. |
... |
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