This 22-Year-Old Built TikTok for Mobile Games, and It’s Growing Fast | E2276

This 22-Year-Old Built TikTok for Mobile Games, and It’s Growing Fast | E2276

Author: Jason Calacanis April 16, 2026 Duration: 1:02:46

This Week In Startups is made possible by:

LinkedIn Jobs - LinkedIn.com/twist Every.io - every.io Render - render.com/twist

Today’s show:

*Imagine scrolling through mobile games the way your flip through your TikTok feed. What if you could build your own game in 90 seconds and share it with the world? That’s what over 100,000 users are enjoying right now on Nanogram.

On TWiST, we meet the co-founders: 22-year-old CEO Albert Brotherton and 24-year-old CTO Boris Radilov. They demo the app for us on the air, and Jason immediately spies the potential. Power users are playing 25+ games per session already.

We’re digging into the co-founders future plans, including the potential for ads in your game feed, in this TWiST exclusive.

PLUS domestic helper bots are here. NEO from 1X Technologies can do the laundry, open the door for guests, and even read and understand Post-It Note messages.

Alex talks with CEO Bernt Børnich about building the safety-first 66-lb humanoid, why world models are so crucial for training robots in particular, and why homes are even tougher places for robots to navigate than factory floors.

Timestamps:0:59 Nanogram co-creators Albert and Boris join the show

3:42 Nanogram is TikTok for casual AI-generated games

4:27 Building Nanogram with Google Gemini

5:49 Draper and Associates: https://www.draper.vc

6:11 Integrating ads into the game feed

7:36 Roblox: https://www.roblox.com World of Warcraft: https://worldofwarcraft.blizzard.com

8:25 Building in New York

9:07 Jason is obsessed with the Staples Baddie https://www.tiktok.com/@blivxx

10:12 LinkedIn Jobs - Hire right, the first time. Post your first job and get $100 off towards your job post at https://LinkedIn.com/twist

20:36 Every.io - For all of your incorporation, banking, payroll, benefits, accounting, taxes or other back-office administration needs, visit https://every.io

21:40 1X CEO and founder Bernt Børnich joins the show https://x.com/BerntBornich

22:31 Designing robots to actually live around people

26:30 Teaching NEO about movement in the physical world

29:00 TechCrunch coverage: https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/13/neo-humanoid-maker-1x-releases-world-model-to-help-bots-learn-what-they-see/

29:58 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.

31:04 Moving beyond training data to true general intelligence

33:17 Ensuring NEO pursues the safest possible path

34:19 Why are world models so important?

41:51 1X World Model Challenge on GitHub: https://github.com/1x-technologies/1xgpt

45:14 Robots need to train on a lot of data… Where does it all come from?

50:14 Manufacturing NEO from raw materials in San Carlos

56:32 Robots building robots

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Every week, Jason Calacanis dives headfirst into the swirling vortex of Silicon Valley and global tech with This Week in Startups. It’s a direct line to the conversations shaping our digital future, moving far beyond surface-level news. You’ll hear Jason’s unfiltered analysis on everything from market shifts and media trends to the underlying mechanics of building a business, all delivered with a blend of enthusiasm and seasoned skepticism. The core of this podcast, however, lies in the guests. Jason sits down with the very people driving change-founders who have scaled impossible heights, operators managing daily chaos, and investors who spot trends before they become obvious. These conversations are less like formal interviews and more like insider debriefs, pulling back the curtain on real strategies, painful failures, and unexpected successes. For anyone curious about how technology is built, funded, and ultimately changes the world, this series offers a front-row seat. It’s the context behind the headlines, providing a deeper understanding of the forces at play in startups and technology. Tune in for a consistently engaging and insightful look at the ecosystem, straight from someone who lives and breathes it.
Author: Language: en-us Episodes: 100

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