The $10M+ Bet on a Beanie That Reads Your Brain | Sabi & the Future of BCI | E2282
April 29, 2026 · 56 min
🎙️ Full episode
No time for the whole episode?
A debrief is a short AI summary of this episode, written and voiced: the key takeaways, notable quotes, and the moments worth hearing in full. It takes a few minutes to make. Free during the beta, up to 5 new debriefs a week.
Show notes
This Week In Startups is made possible by:
Render - https://Render.com/TWIST
Northwest Registered Agent - https://NorthwestRegisteredAgent.com/TWIST
LinkedIn Jobs - https://LinkedIn.com/TWIST
Today's show:
A beanie that reads your thoughts and turns them into text — no surgery required? Jason grills the Sabi co-founders on their noninvasive brain-computer interface, backed by Vinod Khosla, and calls a cap on the whole thing (until he doesn't).
This episode of This Week in Startups covers a lot of ground: Jason's tactical tip of the day on making everyone the CEO of their domain, a deep dive into Sabi's thought-to-text beanie, a live demo of AI-powered podcast sidebars built by the TWiST audience, the announcement of a new $5K bounty for an annotation tool, and Jason's big five wellness framework.
Guests:
Sabi: Website, Wired article
Co-founder and CEO Rahul Chhabra: LinkedIn, X
Companies and people discussed:
Matt Coffin, founder of LowerMyBills.com
Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures
Neuralink, a leading BCI company
ElevenLabs, a leading voice AI startup
Calm, the popular meditation app
Timestamps:
Intro & tactical tip: Make everyone the CEO of their domain
Matt Coffin's "CEO of X" management philosophy
Community ownership: Deputizing Ricky, Lawn, Bianca, Maddie, Kabir
Building the Noti Gang: X group chats and community flywheels
Founder takeaways: Activate your top 1%, make someone the CEO of it
The streamer trick, parasocial dynamics, and creator ethics
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!
Guest intro: Rahul Chhabra of Sabi
What is Sabi? Noninvasive BCI in a beanie with 100,000 sensors
LinkedIn Jobs - Hire right, the first time. Post your first job and get $100 off towards your job post at https://LinkedIn.com/TWIST
How it works: From fMRI to EEG, from hospital to hat
The brain foundation model and thought-to-text decoding
Vetting the founders: BITS Pilani, Stanford, athlete fatigue AI
Vinod Khosla's investment thesis: BCI must be noninvasive
Jason's challenge: Say "Calacanis," or it doesn't count
Northwest Registered Agent: Get more when you start your business with Northwest. In 10 clicks and 10 minutes, you can form your company and walk away with a real business identity — Learn more at https://northwestregisteredagent.com/twist
Sabi.com: Reserve your device, release by end of 2026
Privacy concerns: Does the beanie read everything?
Bounty #1: AI live sidebar contest — demos from the TWiST audience
Oliver's breakdown: What's easy vs. hard about live AI commentary
Demo #1: Armchair (by Mark Colebrook) — fact-checker + troll personas, live
Render: Find out why 5 million developers are already using the all-in-one cloud platform, Render. Go to https://render.com/twist and apply for the Render Startup Program to get $500-$100,000 in free credits, depending on your stage and backers.
35