Ideas
Solar now cheaper than coal.
Jason argues that capitalism and innovation have made solar and batteries so cheap that solar is now less expensive than retrofitting or building coal, Texas is the largest US solar provider, and local energy builders choose the most profitable next supply, so solar likely wins in most cases unless a data center can sit directly on a natural gas field.
Meta settlement financially manageable.
Meta's $17.1B child safety settlement is small relative to its market cap and roughly 10% of free cash flow; the stock rose more than the fine amount on the settlement, so the financial and regulatory overhang is manageable even if the social harms are real.
Fintech and e-commerce still attractive.
Even though most VC attention is on AI, Dave argues fintech and e-commerce are still large, growing, and not overfunded, especially outside the US and in emerging markets, making them attractive areas despite being out of favor in the US venture world.
Stripe-OpenRouter ties payments to AI.
Hussein sees Stripe's acquisition of OpenRouter as strategic because Stripe routes payments while OpenRouter routes AI inference, giving Stripe visibility into where AI spend happens and coupling payments with the AI infrastructure layer, even though the price reflects a big bet.
Robotics and physical AI still open.
VC has shifted from anti-hardware to pro-hardware, and Hussein argues language-related AI is largely settled while robotics and physical AI remain up for grabs with real defensibility because hardware is hard; he is a big believer and has already invested in a stealth robotics frontier model with a more efficient training technique.
Elon's xAI infrastructure pivot created value.
Dave credits Elon Musk for a massive pivot at xAI; the company was originally valuable mostly for infrastructure and capex, but that infrastructure is now being rented to Anthropic and Google, and the addition of Cursor created an 'Elon web services' line that may become the majority of revenue.
OpenAI agent growth inflecting sharply.
Dave highlights OpenAI's accelerating agent adoption: active agent users grew from 200k in January to 20M by late August, about a 4x increase in two months, while the CFO said OpenAI would IPO in 2027 or sooner if growth keeps inflecting, and OpenAI revenue growth is reaccelerating.
AI accounting automation Basis growing fast.
Sheel highlights Basis as an AI accounting company that automates junior accountant work, analogous to Harvey or Lora in law; the company has shown amazing growth because accounting firms are actually using the product, and he led the seed before Khosla and Excel led later rounds.
Brazilian MOTU profitable, growing fast.
Dave says MOTU, a motorcycle manufacturing and small business lending company for delivery drivers in São Paulo, is one of his best LatAm investments: it is profitable, doing over $300M revenue, growing 60-70% per year, and still very reasonably priced.
EquityB unlocks employee option liquidity.
Dave recently invested in EquityB because it provides employee stock option forward contracts, letting locked-up employees finance, exercise, and hold shares and obtain liquidity before their shares are actually available, which is useful for employees leaving companies.
CuspAI material science marked up fast.
Hussein says CuspAI, an AI for material science company, received Hoxton's inception $10M check and is now worth $2.6B after Kleiner marked it up within two years, making it nearly a fund returner.
Sovereign AI Apacus has waitlist demand.
Jason incubated Apacus 18 months ago for on-prem and sovereign AI; it puts one server into banking and healthcare facilities so they can build their own large language models without handing data to frontier providers or risking leakage, and the product has a waitlist, a sign of strong demand.
This This Week in Startups video, published August 26, 2026,
features Jason Calacanis, Hussein Kanji, Dave McClure, Sheel Mohnot
discussing SOLAR, META, FINTECH, E-COMMERCE, EEM, STRIPE, ROBO, XAI, OPENAI, Basis, MOTU, EquityB, CuspAI, Apacus.
12 trade ideas extracted by AI with direction and confidence scoring.
Speakers:
Jason Calacanis,
Hussein Kanji,
Dave McClure,
Sheel Mohnot
· Tickers:
SOLAR,
META,
FINTECH,
E-COMMERCE,
EEM,
STRIPE,
ROBO,
XAI,
OPENAI,
Basis,
MOTU,
EquityB,
CuspAI,
Apacus
