Hugging Face Co-Founder on Open-Source, Microduck, and NVIDIA | E2339

Watch on YouTube ↗  |  September 18, 2026 at 22:30  |  1:33:13  |  This Week in Startups
Speakers
Thomas Wolf — Co-founder and Chief Science Officer, Hugging Face
Jason Calacanis — Angel Investor / Founder, LAUNCH

Summary

Thomas Wolf, co-founder of Hugging Face, discusses the Microduck robot, Hugging Face's storage and compute business, open-source AI, local AI, robotics, and AI cyber defense. Jason Calacanis and Lon Harris cover California's AI kill-switch proposal, robotaxi expansion with Lucid and Bolt, Snap's AR glasses, and media/reality TV. Market implications center on open-source and local AI, AI storage, robotaxis, AR glasses, and Snap governance concerns.

  • Hugging Face's Microduck sold over 16,000 units and highlights low-cost entertainment robotics.
  • Hugging Face's core revenue is driven by AI storage and compute, with open-source models nearing frontier capability.
  • Thomas Wolf is bullish on local AI, open-source model diversity, and specialized AI storage.
  • Jason Calacanis sees a massive robotaxi market, naming Lucid, Rivian, and Tesla as key beneficiaries.
  • Jason is bearish on Snap stock due to super-voting shares, dilution, and early AR hardware.
  • Jason and Lon criticize California's AI kill-switch proposal as a moral panic.
  • Snap Specs and AR glasses are viewed as promising but not yet ready for mass adoption.
Ideas
Thomas Wolf Co-founder and Chief Science Officer, Hugging Face 11:21
AI workloads drive specialized storage demand.
AI storage is a critical bottleneck because AI workloads require fast, GPU-adjacent access to massive model and robotics data, with versioning and deduplication, driving demand for specialized AI storage.
AI-SECTOR MED
Thomas Wolf Co-founder and Chief Science Officer, Hugging Face 13:36
Open-source AI is catching up fast.
Open-source AI models are less than a year behind frontier models, benefit from diversity and post-training, make the ecosystem more resilient, and pressure closed labs to keep prices reasonable.
Open-source AI HIGH
Thomas Wolf Co-founder and Chief Science Officer, Hugging Face 18:42
Cheap entertainment robots have unique opportunity.
Thomas Wolf sees a unique opportunity in low-cost, capable entertainment and education robots, an area he believes nobody is seriously addressing, and Hugging Face plans to keep pushing it.
Entertainment/education robotics MED
Jason Calacanis Angel Investor / Founder, LAUNCH 61:40
Robotaxi market will be enormous.
The robotaxi/autonomous vehicle market will be massive because purpose-built vehicles lower costs, fleet sales concentrate demand, and reaching 30% of global rides would require 100-125 million AVs per year, far more than Tesla alone can supply.
Robotaxi market HIGH
Jason Calacanis Angel Investor / Founder, LAUNCH 62:13
Lucid benefits from robotaxi fleet shift.
Lucid will shift from consumer cars toward purpose-built robotaxis; the 25,000-vehicle Bolt deal validates fleet demand and offers a better business than consumer sales.
LCID MED
Jason Calacanis Angel Investor / Founder, LAUNCH 63:54
Rivian can fill robotaxi supply gap.
Rivian can be a major supplier to the robotaxi/AV market because demand will be so great that Tesla cannot fill it alone, and fleet sales are more attractive than consumer sales.
RIVN MED
Jason Calacanis Angel Investor / Founder, LAUNCH 65:02
Tesla leads robotaxi production at scale.
Tesla is a leader in robotaxis and could produce 2-3 million robotaxis per year; Jason is a long-time fan and shareholder, though he warns against undue pressure on AV companies.
TSLA HIGH
Jason Calacanis Angel Investor / Founder, LAUNCH 65:55
Robotaxi software layer faces commoditization.
May Mobility's robotaxi software layer is at risk because AV software will be commoditized within 24 months as open-source and open-hardware stacks from Nvidia and others become widely available.
May Mobility MED
Jason Calacanis Angel Investor / Founder, LAUNCH 72:44
AR glasses promising but not ready.
AR glasses could be a winning model once they cost under $500 and last 4-5 hours, but current devices are chunky, expensive, and likely two to three years away from mass adoption.
AR glasses MED
Jason Calacanis Angel Investor / Founder, LAUNCH 72:52
Avoid Snap due to governance and dilution.
Snap's AR glasses are a promising product category, but he avoids Snap stock due to super-voting shares that entrench management, high stock-based compensation, lack of buybacks, and early/ugly hardware.
SNAP HIGH
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This This Week in Startups video, published September 18, 2026, features Thomas Wolf, Jason Calacanis discussing AI-SECTOR, Open-source AI, Entertainment/education robotics, Robotaxi market, LCID, RIVN, TSLA, May Mobility, AR glasses, SNAP. 10 trade ideas extracted by AI with direction and confidence scoring.

Speakers: Thomas Wolf, Jason Calacanis  · Tickers: AI-SECTOR, Open-source AI, Entertainment/education robotics, Robotaxi market, LCID, RIVN, TSLA, May Mobility, AR glasses, SNAP