All episodes of This Week in Startups

This Week in Startups · 2026-09-02 · 80 min · 14,791 words

VC experts on why Physical AI funding is heating up | E2333

Listen to the original audio · Transcribed with NVIDIA Parakeet · Timestamps stay in sync with the live audio

Physical AI companies now have raised almost 50 billion in venture funding wait for it in the first half of 2026, up 80% from 2025. Six months of this year outraged 2022, 2023, and 2024 combined. Jensen very famously predicted that every industrial company will become a robotics company. Ten years ago, the smartest engineer I met, they they wanted to work on ads. Today That engineer, she wants to build rocket engines in Moses Lake, Washington. They just told us don't do hardware. It'll they'll run out of money. There's no margin, the Chinese will just copy it. 450 deals and 45 billion dollars in physical AI.

In the first half twenty six. Back in twenty three, it was not even five. This week in Startups is brought to you by O Do, the all-in-one business platform. Your first app is free. Get started today at ODOO.com/slash twist. Lightfield, name one person who's ever enjoyed updating a CRM. Exactly. Lightfield's AI agent does it for you. It even prospects and books your meetings, used by thousands of startups. Free at Lightfield.app Sentry. Your team should be focused on shipping features, not chasing down bugs. New users can get$240 in free credits when they go to Sentry.io slash twist.

And use the code twist. All right, everybody, welcome back to This Week in Startups. It's our VC round table. We call it This Week in VC. I'm getting very creative with the names around here. We got this week in startups in year 17, this week in venture capital, this week in AI, new offerings, trying to tighten those up with round tables with great guests who are actually doing those jobs. Something happened in media. I started my career in zines and magazines and then I did weblog zinc. And then I did podcasting. And along that journey.

That is the first couple of minutes. The rest is $1.49.

We already have this episode, so unlocking it is cheap and permanent: the full transcript (80 minutes, 14,791 words), segment and word-level timestamps, and .txt, .srt, .vtt and word-level JSON downloads, as many times as you like, forever.

No account needed, we create one from your checkout email. With credits it is 1 credit; packs start at 5 episodes for $3.49, and monthly plans are cheaper still.

get it now

Ready in under two minutes.

pay once · credits never expire

monthly · cheapest per episode · cancel any time

One episode is up to 4 hours of audio; a longer one counts as one more for every started 4 hours. Secure checkout by Stripe. Paying once needs no account: we create one from your email. By paying you agree to the terms.