This Week in Startups · Sep 28, 2026 · 50m · 36m saved
With Jason Calacanis, Angel Investor and Founder of LAUNCH · Lon Harris, Editorial Director at LAUNCH · Stacy Salvi, Co-founder and CEO of The90
Jason Calacanis priced a takeover of the cloud host DigitalOcean at about $25 billion and called it no problem for Apple. He wants the new chief executive, John Ternus, to buy whole companies instead of Apple's own stock.
Most of Apple's deals have been tuck-ins: the team behind Siri, the team behind Touch ID. Calacanis and his co-host Lon Harris ran a fantasy draft of the companies Apple should buy, looking for businesses that could replace the company's dependence on the iPhone.
"I believe John Ternus should stop buying back the shares"
Jason Calacanis, angel investor and founder of LAUNCH, hosts This Week in Startups and has spent two decades backing early-stage companies. Lon Harris is LAUNCH's editorial director and his co-host. In the second half of the episode they interviewed Stacy Salvi, a Fitbit veteran of about eight years who now runs The90, a startup selling a pendant that measures UV exposure.
The full episode is covered here so you can skip it. 50 minutes of audio, 14 minutes of reading.
Here are the 12 calls that matter.
Key Takeaways
Calacanis wants Apple to stop buying back stock and make large acquisitions instead
Disney would put Apple inside the theme parks and the Disney stores, in Calacanis's view
Harris picked Sony for PlayStation, Sony Pictures, Sony Music and Crunchyroll
Calacanis said Apple will eventually need a robot, and chose Boston Dynamics
DigitalOcean would give Apple a cloud business, which it does not have today
Calacanis put the price at about $25 billion after a 50% premium
Etched would reduce Apple's dependence on Nvidia chips for AI inference, Harris said
About 90% of photo-aging of the skin comes from UV exposure, which gave The90 its name
The90's app reads live UV from the pendant, not a zip-code forecast
Research groups have already approached The90 about its data, Salvi said
1. Ternus Should Swing Big
Calacanis opened by setting out what Apple usually does with its money.
Apple buys back stock and small engineering teams
"Obviously, Apple's philosophy of buying things is they like to buy back their own stock and technical teams, you know, a team that built Siri, you know, the team that built touch ID." — Jason Calacanis
He said those deals add a capability to an existing product rather than bring in a full product line.
He wants the new chief executive to change course
"I believe John Ternus should stop buying back the shares" — Jason Calacanis
His test for a target was whether Apple's devices and stores could connect to it.
"My way of looking at this is anything that the iPhone, your laptop, your watch, your AirPods, and their stores can integrate with on some level." — Jason Calacanis
The two hosts then ran the draft like a fantasy sports draft, each picking five companies from a pool that included Perplexity, Disney, Peloton, Whoop, Sonos and Exo Labs. Harris picked first.
