This Week in Startups
This Week in Startups
Jason Calacanis
The 5 Companies Apple Must Buy
50 minutes Posted Sep 28, 2026 at 8:51 pm.
Will Ternus take "massively big swings"?
Round 1: ElevenLabs
Round 1: Disney
Round 2: Sony
Round 2: Boston Dynamics
Round 3: Perplexity
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Round 3: DigitalOcean
More picks: Etched
More picks: Lucid
More picks: Superhuman
More picks: Higgsfield and more
Fans make their selections
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Stacy Salvi of The90 joins
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How the app calculates your Sunscore
Building a UV research dataset
Should The90 make a version for men?
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This Week In Startups is made possible by:
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Today’s show:
Wall Street suspects new Apple CEO John Ternus may do something predecessor Tim Cook almost never did: writing a huge check.
So Jason and Lon are playing “fantasy draft” with Apple’s balance sheet, choosing five real companies to acquire over five “rounds.” Disney buys them a ton of IP and unlocks theme park synergies. Sony gets them a gaming console and massive anime distribution. Boston Dynamics buys them lots of robots, while Etched nets them cheaper inference. So many options!
Then, we chat with Stacy Salvi of The90. Her wearable pendant tells you exactly how much sun damage you’re accumulating, long before you start to burn.
Guest
The90: https://the90.com/
Stacy Salvi on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stacysalvi/
Relevant Links
John Ternus becomes Apple CEO: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/04/tim-cook-to-become-apple-executive-chairman-john-ternus-to-become-apple-ceo/
Analyst: Ternus could bring bigger acquisitions: https://9to5mac.com/?p=1065466
“Grok Has Money” meme origin: https://x.com/gmfarcaster/status/2026318035103965414
Sunlight linked with lower COVID-19 deaths: https://www.ed.ac.uk/news/2021/sunlight-linked-with-lower-covid-19-deaths
Reid Hoffman: “If there aren’t any typos in this essay, we launched too late”: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/arent-any-typos-essay-we-launched-too-late-reid-hoffman/
Draft Picks
ElevenLabs: https://elevenlabs.io/
Disney: https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/
Sony Group: https://www.sony.com/en/
Crunchyroll: https://www.crunchyroll.com/
Boston Dynamics: https://bostondynamics.com/
Perplexity: https://www.perplexity.ai/
DigitalOcean: https://www.digitalocean.com/
Etched: https://www.etched.com/
Rivian: https://rivian.com/
Lucid Motors: https://lucidmotors.com/
Superhuman: https://superhuman.com/
World Labs: https://www.worldlabs.ai/
PrismML: https://prismml.com/
Liquid AI: https://www.liquid.ai/
Kagi: https://kagi.com/
Sonos: https://www.sonos.com/en-us/shop
Whoop: https://www.whoop.com/
Oura: https://ouraring.com/
Peloton: https://www.onepeloton.com/
Timestamps:
Names & Links
Stacy Salvi - https://www.instagram.com/stacysalvi/
The90 - https://the90.com/
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