Free usage masked real demand

Alex Wilhelm asks about Chutes volume trends, and Jon Durbin explains the shift from free tokens to paid usage and current model demand.

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This Week In Startups is made possible by:

Render - render.com/twist

Vanta - vanta.com/twist

Northwest Registered Agent - northwestregisteredagent.com/twist

Have you wanted to invest in venture capital alongside your 401k contributions, but struggled to find a way to place a bet? Search no more, for the AngelList team has created USVC, a new fund that will accept investments of as little as $500 from folks who lack accreditation. USVC’s Ankur Napgal swung by the show to chat about investment strategies, access, fees, and just how illiquid the venture-like vehicle will prove to be.

Jason and Alex were then joined by Jon Durbin, core contributor at Chutes, and Yash Goenka, co-founder and CEO of Humwork. Chutes is the most valuable Bittensor subnet, focused on aggregating GPUs to offer trustless AI compute. Humwork wants to help bring a human into your agentic workflow to unstick your agent when it runs into a hitch. The show closes with a news lightning round — enjoy!

Timestamps:

0:00 Intro + Plaud AI sponsor read (Jason demos the NotePin S)

2:06 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations — interviews, meetings, calls — you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at https://Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!

3:50 Episode overview: USVC, Chutes, Humwork

7:41 USVC structure: $500 min, no accreditation, quarterly redemptions

10:28 Northwest Registered Agent - Get more when you start your business with Northwest. In 10 clicks and 10 minutes, you can form your company and walk away with a real business identity — Learn more at https://northwestregisteredagent.com/twist

11:39 Fee structure breakdown: 1% mgmt fee, ~2.5% net expense ratio

15:41 USVC portfolio: xAI, Anthropic, OpenAI, Crusoe, Vercel

16:17 Strategy: 1/3 emerging managers, 1/3 growth, 1/3 secondaries

19:00 $1B cap and path to expanding the fund

20:33 Vanta - Compliance and security shouldn't be a deal-breaker for startups to win new business. Vanta makes it easy for companies to get a SOC 2 reports fast. Get $1,000 off for a limited time at https://www.vanta.com/twist

28:00 What is sovereign compute? Permissionless GPU networks explained

30:10 Render - Find out why 5 million developers are already using the all-in-one cloud platform, Render. Go to https://render.com/twist and apply for the Render Startup Program to get $500-$100,000 in free credits, depending on your stage and backers.

44:53 Usage history: 160B tokens/day peak, free-to-paid transition

46:41 GPU pricing: from $0.77/hr to $3.50/hr as shortage bites

49:13 DeepSeek censorship demo: Taiwan test on DeepSeek chat

57:27 Permissionless supply curves: Uber/Airbnb analogy for induced demand

59:20 Yash Goenka, co-founder of Humwork (YC S26)

1:00:49 Lightning Round: Ryan Cohen wants to buy eBay — Jason's hot take

1:12:36 Lightning Round: Cerebras IPO update ($27–36B valuation range)

1:14:05 Lightning Round: Spirit Airlines / JetBlue / M&A regulation debate

1:19:10 OFF-DUTY: Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord

1:32:57 Alex's OFF-DUTY: Captain of Industry

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