Breaking down Nvidia's Hugging Face and Poolside bets | E2331 | This Week in Startups

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Today's show:

*Nvidia agreed to buy Hugging Face for $12.9 billion, just days after quietly licensing Poolside's coding model for $6 billion+. On TWiST, Jason lays out why this is actually the biggest AI story of the year. Nvidia plans to offer enterprises unmetered, unlimited on-prem compute, pulling them away from reliance on Anthropic and OpenAI's frontier models and products.

PLUS we're chatting with Halter founder & CEO Craig Piggott about how his company helps farmers optimize their land use via solar-powered AI-driven cattle collars. AND Hop Aero CEO and co-founder Matija Milenovic shows us Rook, his autonomous hypersonic cargo rocket that can launch from a shipping container and deliver cargo up to 450 miles away in about 15 minutes. Finally, Jason and Lon explain why you never post Slop on the timeline.

Guests:

Craig Piggott on X: https://x.com/craig_piggott

Halter: https://www.halterhq.com/

Matija Milenovic on X: https://x.com/mat_milenovic

Hop Aero: https://hopaero.com/

Relevant Links:

OpenAI Open Letter: https://openai.com/collective-cyberdefense/

OpenAI Hugging Face report: https://openai.com/index/hugging-face-incident-and-the-road-ahead/

OpenAI Jalapeño report: https://openai.com/index/jalapeno-first-results/

Dario Amodei-Gavin Baker tweet thread: https://x.com/DarioAmodei/status/2088758816376807762

TechCrunch: Nvidia-Hugging Face deal: https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/26/nvidia-closes-in-on-hugging-face-acquisition/

TechCrunch coverage of Halter: https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/04/unpacking-peter-thiels-big-bet-on-solar-powered-cow-collars/

Dealroom: Sir Peter Back on Rocket Lab: https://app.dealroom.co/news/note/sir-peter-beck-on-rocket-lab-s-no-money-so-we-have-to-think-playbook-from-a-60k-new-zealand-start-up-to-an-end-to-end-space-company

WSJ: Druckenmiller op-ed: "Let the Bond Market Speak": https://www.wsj.com/opinion/let-the-bond-market-speak-81529d74

NOTUS: Druckenmiller's WSJ op-ed was written with AI: https://www.notus.org/media/stanley-druckenmillers-wsj-op-ed-bessent-ai

WaPo: Wall Street Journal defends Druckenmiller op-ed: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2026/08/25/wall-street-journal-says-ai-generated-op-ed-didnt-breach-its-standards/

Photon Matrix Laser Mosquito Killer: https://photonmatrixlab.com/

"The Wizard of the Kremlin" trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7ctYp3zQVA

"King & Conqueror" trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anS9xQEPTsU

"Lanterns" trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UIBOsuUwc4

"Rebel Ridge" trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gF3gZicntIw

Alpaka Bravo Sling Max 2 bag: https://alpakagear.com/products/bravo-sling-max-v2

No Agenda podcast: https://www.noagendashow.net/

THR: John C. Dvorak obit: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/john-dvorak-dead-tech-journalist-no-agenda-inside-track-1236657317/

Timestamps:

0:00 The 100+ company open letter on cyberdefense

9:48 DigitalOcean - Want to see what building on a true AI-native platform looks like? Head to https://do.co/twist to start building on DigitalOcean's AI-Native Cloud today — and cut your AI workload costs by up to 50%.

16:46 Why some models are "unsafe at any latency"

19:44 Craig Piggott of Halter joins the show

21:03 Every.io - For all of your incorporation, banking, payroll, benefits, accounting, taxes or other back-office administration needs, visit https://every.io

26:09 How do you add cows to Starlink?

31:26 PayPal - Pay zero processing fees on your first $100K in eligible PayPal payment volume. Learn more at https://paypal.launch.co

47:52 Founder-led hyper-local sales motion

53:15 Remember John C. Dvorak

58:27 Matija Milenovic of Hop Aero joins

59:53 Sending out autonomous swarms in the Indo-Pacific

1:11:26 Nvidia's mega-Hugging Face deal

1:16:32 Nvidia's "unmetered" play against Anthropic and OpenAI

1:29:47 How letting AI write for you is like lip syncing

1:33:44 Laser-guided mosquito defense system

1:36:32 Lon's streaming picks

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