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

18.09.2026 · 1 Std. 34 Min.

Shownotes

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Today’s show:

Hugging Face built a $399 open-source robot duck as a side quest, and sold 16,000 units off a single tweet. Co-founder Thomas Wolf joins Jason and Lon to explain Microduck happened, why storage is the company's real business, and what it felt like to get hacked by OpenAI's agents.

Jason takes apart Gavin Newsom's new AI "kill switch" executive order: if these models are so dangerous, why not start with the same KYC every bank already requires? PLUS, Snap’s new AI-integrated glasses could be a game-changer.

Guests:

Thomas Wolf on X: https://x.com/Thom_Wolf

Hugging Face: https://huggingface.co/

Relevant Links:

Hugging Face — https://huggingface.co/

Microduck — https://pollen-robotics.com/microduck/

Pollen Robotics — https://pollen-robotics.com/

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

Governor Newsom's executive order — https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/californias-newsom-issues-executive-order-to-weigh-ai-oversight-including-kill-switch-3a98040f

Anthropic Wet Lab — https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/18/anthropic-quietly-sets-up-biology-lab-as-it-ramps-ai-drug-program-report.html

Lucid and Bolt to deploy 25,000 autonomous EVs across Europe — https://electrek.co/2026/09/17/lucid-bolt-25000-autonomous-evs-europe/

Snap opens pre-orders for Specs at $2,195 — https://www.specs.com/

Ray-Ban Meta Display — the $799 comparison https://www.meta.com/ai-glasses/

Clavicular at All-In Summit — https://x.com/clavicular/status/2099994778616348811?s=20

Physical: 100 (the Korean original) → https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical:_100

Bad Therapy — https://www.abigailshrier.com/

Full Show Notes and Transcript from Pluad: https://plaud.ai/twist

Timestamps:

0:00 Guest: Thomas Wolf, co-founder & chief science officer, Hugging Face

1:58 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations — interviews, meetings, calls — you need a Plaud NotePin S. You can check it out at https://plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!

4:17 Two years to build Microduck

8:43 How Hugging Face actually makes money: storage, not tokens

10:16 Superhuman - Superhuman Go is an AI chat that's always there when you need it, already aware of what you're doing, and doesn't ask you to start from zero. Sign up to get the best in AI at https://superhuman.com

17:18 Vibe-coding robotics: "train this new behavior for me"

20:00 PayPal - Pay zero processing fees on your first $100K in eligible PayPal payment volume. Learn more at https://paypal.com/business

23:20 Thomas Wolf's P-doom and the airplane-safety analogy

25:18 The Nvidia acquisition and what changes for open models

29:57 Odoo - The all-in-one business platform. Your first app is free! Get started today at https://Odoo.com/twist

38:39 Inside the Hugging Face breach: stolen credentials and basic mistakes

43:33 News: Newsom's executive order and the frontier-model "kill switch"

45:04 Jason's counter-proposal: liability, insurance, and KYC for AI

1:00:08 News: Lucid and Bolt to put 25,000 robotaxis on European roads

1:10:01 News: Snap opens pre-orders for $2,195 Specs AR glasses

1:21:43 Off-Duty: Clavicular, the All-In Summit

1:31:01 Off-Duty: Physical 100 goes to Italy and Mexico