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

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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: x.com/Thom_Wolf

Hugging Face: huggingface.co

Relevant Links:

Hugging Face — huggingface.co

Microduck — pollen-robotics.com/microduck

Pollen Robotics — pollen-robotics.com

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

Governor Newsom's executive order — wsj.com/tech/ai/californias-newsom-issues-exec…

Anthropic Wet Lab — cnbc.com/2026/09/18/anthropic-quietly-sets-up-…

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

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

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

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

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

Bad Therapy — abigailshrier.com

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

Timestamps:

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

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

Two years to build Microduck

How Hugging Face actually makes money: storage, not tokens

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

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

The Nvidia acquisition and what changes for open models

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

Inside the Hugging Face breach: stolen credentials and basic mistakes

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

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

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

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

Off-Duty: Clavicular, the All-In Summit

Off-Duty: Physical 100 goes to Italy and Mexico