Breaking down Nvidia's Hugging Face and Poolside bets | E2331
August 28, 2026 · 1 h 48 min
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Today's show:
*Nvidia agreed to buy Hugging Face for $12.9 billion, just days after quietly licensing Poolside's coding model for $6 billion+. On TWiST, Jason lays out why this is actually the biggest AI story of the year. Nvidia plans to offer enterprises unmetered, unlimited on-prem compute, pulling them away from reliance on Anthropic and OpenAI's frontier models and products.
PLUS we're chatting with Halter founder & CEO Craig Piggott about how his company helps farmers optimize their land use via solar-powered AI-driven cattle collars. AND Hop Aero CEO and co-founder Matija Milenovic shows us Rook, his autonomous hypersonic cargo rocket that can launch from a shipping container and deliver cargo up to 450 miles away in about 15 minutes. Finally, Jason and Lon explain why you never post Slop on the timeline.
Guests:
Craig Piggott on X: https://x.com/craig_piggott
Halter: https://www.halterhq.com/
Matija Milenovic on X: https://x.com/mat_milenovic
Hop Aero: https://hopaero.com/
Relevant Links:
OpenAI Open Letter: https://openai.com/collective-cyberdefense/
OpenAI Hugging Face report: https://openai.com/index/hugging-face-incident-and-the-road-ahead/
OpenAI Jalapeño report: https://openai.com/index/jalapeno-first-results/
Dario Amodei-Gavin Baker tweet thread: https://x.com/DarioAmodei/status/2088758816376807762
TechCrunch: Nvidia-Hugging Face deal: https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/26/nvidia-closes-in-on-hugging-face-acquisition/
TechCrunch coverage of Halter: https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/04/unpacking-peter-thiels-big-bet-on-solar-powered-cow-collars/
Dealroom: Sir Peter Back on Rocket Lab: https://app.dealroom.co/news/note/sir-peter-beck-on-rocket-lab-s-no-money-so-we-have-to-think-playbook-from-a-60k-new-zealand-start-up-to-an-end-to-end-space-company
WSJ: Druckenmiller op-ed: "Let the Bond Market Speak": https://www.wsj.com/opinion/let-the-bond-market-speak-81529d74
NOTUS: Druckenmiller's WSJ op-ed was written with AI: https://www.notus.org/media/stanley-druckenmillers-wsj-op-ed-bessent-ai
WaPo: Wall Street Journal defends Druckenmiller op-ed: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2026/08/25/wall-street-journal-says-ai-generated-op-ed-didnt-breach-its-standards/
Photon