Show notes
This Week In Startups is made possible by:Vanta: https://www.vanta.com/twistDigitalOcean: https://do.co/twistSentry: https://sentry.io/twistPlaud: https://plaud.ai/twistToday’s show:The smarter AI gets, the more it just does the work for you, and the less helpful it becomes as a tutor.Shan Reddy of Aristotle joins Jason to demo a voice-first tutor built to run a session the way a $200-an-hour human tutor would. We also dive into why frontier models are trained to hand you answers rather than build real understanding.PLUS, in Ask Jason, an incoming Fordham student (Jason’s alma mater!) wants to prepare for a career in finance. Plus, David from NYU calls back and wants to discuss what everyone would do with $500K in free money. Then, why does Jason think the Doomerism is coming from inside the AI labs?Guests:Shan Reddy on X: https://x.com/rshanreddyAristotle: https://www.heyaristotle.com/Relevant Links:Shoe Dog by Phil Knight → https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoe_DogSomething Like an Autobiography by Akira Kurosawa → https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Something_Like_an_AutobiographyEinstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson, which Dovid is reading now → https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein:_His_Life_and_UniverseGartner, Jason's example of firms doing research on behalf of corporations → https://www.gartner.com/"Religious Scholars Met With Anthropic. What They Heard Stunned Them." by Elizabeth Dias, The New York Times, Sept. 29, 2026; the story Lon brings up → https://www.inquirer.com/news/nation-world/religious-leaders-met-with-anthropic-20260930.htmlDavid Sacks accuses Anthropic of a "regulatory capture strategy based on fear-mongering"; the line Lon references (Bloomberg Law) → https://news.bloomberglaw.com/artificial-intelligence/anthropic-is-running-a-strategy-based-on-fear-mongering-sacksAristotle's $5M seed round (PR Newswire) → https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/aristotle-secures-5m-to-replace-the-chatbot-with-high-dosage-ai-tutoring-for-students-302880500.html"The 2 Sigma Problem" by Benjamin Bloom (1984), original paper → https://web.mit.edu/5.95/readings/bloom-two-sigma.pdfJournal record (Educational Researcher / SAGE) → https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.3102/0013189X013006004NYC's AI moratorium through 8th grade (ABC News) → https://abcnews.com/Technology/new-york-city-public-schools-banning-ai-middle/story?id=136134872Alpha School → https://www.alpha.schoolBrilliant's origin story at the LAUNCH Festival (NPR) → https://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/07/23/203677692/giving-brightest-kids-the-cram-school-experience-onlineTimestamps:Subscribe to our newsletters on Substack:TWiST: https://twistartups.substack.com/TWiAI: https://www.thisweekinai.ai/TWiVC: https://thisweekinvc.substack.com/Subscribe 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/
