This Week In Startups is made possible by:Northwest Registered Agent: https://northwestregisteredagent.com/twistdomainCLA: https://www.claconnect.com/withyouRippling: https://rippling.ai/twistToday's show:Hugging Face's $399 Microduck and the art of companies taking on side quests. Then, we get into Dwarkesh Patel's "The Rise and Fall of Agent Civilizations," which blew up online this weekend. Jason calls the "secret AI civilization" framing deliberate PR, and thinks it's inflammatory enough that someone might attack a data center over it.Then, Anders Forslund of Heart Aerospace shows off the X1, a battery-powered electric airliner designed for regional flights that can fly for 30 minutes on just $5 of juice. PLUS, we've got John Yu of Bitsec explaining how his subnet project outperformed Fable 5 in website vulnerability checks.Guests:Anders Forslund on X: https://x.com/AndersForslund1?s=2Heart Aerospace: https://www.heartaerospace.com/John Yu on X: https://x.com/yubrewBitsec: https://sentios.io/ & https://sentios.io/Relevant Links:MicroDuck: https://pollen-robotics.com/microduck/Dwarkesh Patel, "The Rise and Fall of Agent Civilizations," https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/openai-huggingfaceDwarkesh's launch thread on X: https://x.com/dwarkesh_sp/status/2093833419377815719METR's independent investigation of the OpenAI/Hugging Face incident: https://metr.org/blog/2026-08-26-openai-hugging-face-incident-investigation/X1 first flight announcement — https://www.heartaerospace.com/newsroom/heart-aerospace-completes-first-flight-of-world-s-largest-electric-aircraftJSX (JetSuiteX) — https://www.jsx.com/Pilatus PC-12 —https://www.pilatus-aircraft.com/en/fly/pc-12Surf Air — https://www.surfair.com/Zcash → https://z.cash/Timestamps:Subscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.comCheck out the TWIST500: https://www.twist500.comSubscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcpFollow Lon:X: https://x.com/lonsFollow Jason:X: https://twitter.com/JasonLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanisCheck out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarlandCheck out Jason's suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanisFollow TWiST:Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartupsYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekinInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartupsTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartupsSubstack: https://twistartups.substack.com