Weekly Recap June 5-12: Prediction markets, Dressd, Diamonds, Shellenberger and more

Hey Everybody!

This week we had the founder of peer clothing rental site?Dressd ,?Ryan ?from Aether who is making diamonds from carbon capture and?Tarek ?from Kalshi who is pioneering a new legal prediction market.?

We were lucky to have returning guests?Deirdre Bosa ?to chop up the news and?Lon Harris ?to chat about streaming.?

At the start of the week, Jason had on author?Michael Shellenberger ?to discuss why he made a run for California governor.

Producer's Pick:

It's no secret that we like placing bets here at This Week in Startups.?Kalshi ?is a startup that lets people place bets on the outcome of events.

When CEO?Tarek Mansour ?was at Goldman, he was tasked with putting together complicated derivatives for investors to hedge against Brexit risk. With Kalshi, he's eliminated all the complexity (and high fees). They've done the hard work to be appropriately regulated by the CFTC. Now people can place bets on events ranging from inflation, covid case rates, outcomes of bills in Congress and more -?Link

Episode recaps below!

How to value startups (VC School) + Creating Diamonds from Air with Aether’s Ryan Shearman (Climate) | E1482

Jason explains his method for valuing startups. Then, for This Week in Climate Startups, Molly sits down with Ryan Shearman, CEO of Aether, to talk about how Aether makes diamonds using carbon extracted from the atmosphere.

Disney’s ambitious streaming goals with Lon Harris + Dressd Founder Capri Wheaton | E1481

Lon Harris joined for This Week in Streaming. First, we hit on Obi-Wan Kenobi Episode 4. Then we covered how Disney fired their head of General Entertainment Content and entered a bidding war to keep their rights to Indian Cricket. We wrap with a segment of OK Boomer. Producer Rachel sits down with Capri Wheaton, founder, and CEO of Dressd, a peer-to-peer clothing rental service.

Twitter bots & Apple BNPL with Deirdre Bosa + Prediction markets with Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour | E1480

Deirdre Bosa from CNBC joined Molly to talk about Twitter’s plans to comply with Musk’s demands for data, Apple being its own bank for Apple Pay Later, and Facebook's parent Meta changing its ticker to META. After that, Jason and Molly interviewed Kalshi co-founder and CEO Tarek Mansour, where we learned about Kalshi building the first CFTC-regulated predictions market.

Michael Shellenberger’s vision for California | E1477

Jason talked with independent candidate for California Governor Michael Shellenberger on what he wants to improve in California. Although Michael did not advance through the primary (he came in 3rd), he shared his potential solutions for housing and energy.

News we covered this week

• Apple’s new releases
• Twitter opens up its data for Musk to assess bots ?
• Didi set to return to Chinese app stores
• Bad actors on Binance
• Amazon’s Dave Clark joins Flexport
• Bird layoffs
• Twitter working on bring-your-own algo
• Multiverse raises $220M to expand its apprenticeship pipeline
• Ken Griffin gets into crypto
• Why BuzzFeed fell 40%
• EU mandates USB-C
• Lab-grown ear transplants
• Tom Brady’s Series B

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