Can an AI Agent Legally Own a Company? Christian van der Henst's Wild Experiment| E2283

2026-05-01 · 70 min · episode 2283 · 18 entities

episode page audio

Asserted relationships

→ references twistartups.substack.com website

0.77

evidence rules-v5
Link in episode "Can an AI Agent Legally Own a Company? Christian van der Henst's Wild Experiment| E2283": https://twistartups.substack.com/
→ references @Calacanis website

0.77

evidence rules-v5
Link in episode "Can an AI Agent Legally Own a Company? Christian van der Henst's Wild Experiment| E2283": https://substack.com/@calacanis
→ hosted by Jason Calacanis person

0.55

evidence rules-v5
Feed author/publisher: Jason Calacanis
→ works at Manifold Labs company

0.50

evidence rules-v5
CEO of Manifold Labs
→ discusses Technology company

0.40

evidence rules-v5
Feed category: Technology
→ references ThisWeekIn website

0.38

evidence rules-v5
Link in episode "Can an AI Agent Legally Own a Company? Christian van der Henst's Wild Experiment| E2283": https://youtube.com/thisweekin
→ references Twist website

0.38

evidence rules-v5
Link in episode "Can an AI Agent Legally Own a Company? Christian van der Henst's Wild Experiment| E2283": https://plaud.ai/twist
→ references @Thisweekinstartups website

0.38

evidence rules-v5
Link in episode "Can an AI Agent Legally Own a Company? Christian van der Henst's Wild Experiment| E2283": https://tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartups
→ references partners.launch.co company

0.38

evidence rules-v5
Link in episode "Can an AI Agent Legally Own a Company? Christian van der Henst's Wild Experiment| E2283": https://partners.launch.co/

Entities found in this episode

websites 10

mentioned twistartups.substack.com website

0.90

evidence rules-v5
Link in episode "Can an AI Agent Legally Own a Company? Christian van der Henst's Wild Experiment| E2283": https://twistartups.substack.com/
mentioned @Calacanis website

0.90

evidence rules-v5
Link in episode "Can an AI Agent Legally Own a Company? Christian van der Henst's Wild Experiment| E2283": https://substack.com/@calacanis
references twistartups.substack.com website

0.77

evidence rules-v5
Link in episode "Can an AI Agent Legally Own a Company? Christian van der Henst's Wild Experiment| E2283": https://twistartups.substack.com/
references @Calacanis website

0.77

evidence rules-v5
Link in episode "Can an AI Agent Legally Own a Company? Christian van der Henst's Wild Experiment| E2283": https://substack.com/@calacanis
mentioned ThisWeekIn website

0.45

evidence rules-v5
Link in episode "Can an AI Agent Legally Own a Company? Christian van der Henst's Wild Experiment| E2283": https://youtube.com/thisweekin
mentioned Twist website

0.45

evidence rules-v5
Link in episode "Can an AI Agent Legally Own a Company? Christian van der Henst's Wild Experiment| E2283": https://pilot.com/twist
mentioned @Thisweekinstartups website

0.45

evidence rules-v5
Link in episode "Can an AI Agent Legally Own a Company? Christian van der Henst's Wild Experiment| E2283": https://tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartups
references ThisWeekIn website

0.38

evidence rules-v5
Link in episode "Can an AI Agent Legally Own a Company? Christian van der Henst's Wild Experiment| E2283": https://youtube.com/thisweekin
references Twist website

0.38

evidence rules-v5
Link in episode "Can an AI Agent Legally Own a Company? Christian van der Henst's Wild Experiment| E2283": https://plaud.ai/twist
references @Thisweekinstartups website

0.38

evidence rules-v5
Link in episode "Can an AI Agent Legally Own a Company? Christian van der Henst's Wild Experiment| E2283": https://tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartups

companys 6

mentioned Manifold Labs company

0.62

evidence rules-v5
CEO of Manifold Labs
mentioned Technology company

0.50

evidence rules-v5
Feed category: Technology
works at Manifold Labs company

0.50

evidence rules-v5
CEO of Manifold Labs
mentioned partners.launch.co company

0.45

evidence rules-v5
Link in episode "Can an AI Agent Legally Own a Company? Christian van der Henst's Wild Experiment| E2283": https://partners.launch.co/
discusses Technology company

0.40

evidence rules-v5
Feed category: Technology
references partners.launch.co company

0.38

evidence rules-v5
Link in episode "Can an AI Agent Legally Own a Company? Christian van der Henst's Wild Experiment| E2283": https://partners.launch.co/

persons 2

mentioned Jason Calacanis person

0.70

evidence rules-v5
Feed author/publisher: Jason Calacanis
hosted by Jason Calacanis person

0.55

evidence rules-v5
Feed author/publisher: Jason Calacanis

Episode description as stored

This Week In Startups is made possible by: Pilot - https://pilot.com/twist Shopify - https://shopify.com/twist Grasshopper Bank - https://grasshopper.bank/twist Today's show: An AI agent named Valerie is running a real vending machine in San Francisco — setting prices, ordering inventory, managing a bank account, and posting to Instagram. And it's not just a stunt. We're getting an early look at the future of one-agent companies. There's still work to do to help agents ease into the economy, potentially opening up new startup opportunities. Jason Calacanis and Alex Wilhelm cover a stacked docket: Christian van der Henst demos the Valerie AI vending machine powered by OpenClaw; Robert Myers, CEO of Manifold Labs, breaks down Targon, a confidential GPU compute marketplace running on Bittensor Subnet 4; Jason calls Bitcoin "played out;" Alex is impressed by Anthropic's stunning $900 billion upcoming valuation; and the guys discuss Big Tech's accelerating CapEx spend, Chinese AI models in Congress crosshairs, and the NBA Playoffs. Timestamps: 0:00 Intro & sponsor reads (Pilot, Shopify, Grasshopper Bank) 1:06 Christian van der Henst: Valerie the AI vending machine demo 4:28 Legal structure: Giving an AI agent business ownership via trust 7:23 Where agents can and can't operate today 10:10 Grasshopper Bank: Time is money. Don't waste either. Go to https://grasshopper.bank/twist and get an exclusive $500 cash bonus just for opening an account. 11:48 AI café in Stockholm running on agents 18:21 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations — interviews, meetings, calls — you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at https://Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off! 19:05 Robert Myers, Manifold Labs: Targon & Bittensor Subnet 4 interview 20:21 What is Bittensor? An "incubator with 128 subnets" 21:08 Shopify: Turn those What If's into sales with the ecommerce platform powering millions of businesses. Sign up for your $1-per-month trial today at https://shopify.com/twist 25:21 Pricing, utilization caps, and why GPUs are sold out 26:38 Who's using Targon? Customers, use cases, and the mom-and-pop data center argument 30:06 Pilot: Focus on your product, let Pilot handle your bookkeeping. Pilot provides the most reliable accounting, CFO, and tax services for startups and small businesses. Head to https://pilot.com/twist and get $1,200 off your first year. 35:07 Jason explains the annotated.com vision — 15 years in the making 39:11 Polymarket: Will Anthropic flip Bitcoin by Dec 31? 40:29 Jason's Bitcoin bear case: "It's played out. No incremental buyers." 46:05 MicroStrategy / Strategy updates 52:37 AI compute demand vs. the fiber overbuild analogy 55:55 Congress pressuring startups over Chinese AI models (DeepSeek, Moonshot) 57:11 A16z on the geopolitical risk of Chinese AI models 1:00:08 Reflection AI — America's open source AI champion (or lack thereof) 1:01:26 Off Duty: Knicks blow out Atlanta Hawks 140–89, Jason goes road-tripping Subscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.com Check out the TWIST500: https://www.twist500.com Subscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcp Follow Lon: X: https://x.com/lons Follow Alex: X: https://x.com/alex LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelm Follow Jason: X: https://twitter.com/Jason LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis Check 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 McFarland Check out Jason's suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis Follow TWiST: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartups YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartups TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartups Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com