Max Zeff - Podcast Details

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Equity Equity Live: From $300M seed rounds to data center builds, AI is feeling bubblyThe Equity crew was live at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025! Hosts Kirsten Korosec, Max Zeff, and Anthony Ha took over the Builders Stage on Monday morning to kick off the event with the question everyone's asking: are we in an AI bubble? Between valuations that have tripled in months, $300M seed rounds, and $100B commitments flying around, the money is moving fast — maybe too fast. The Equity team breaks down what peak bubble looks like, where the actual business models are (spoiler: a lot of companies are betting on AI datacenters), and why some founders are betting against the sca...

2025-10-3130 min

Equity OpenAI wants to power your browser, and that could be a security nightmareThe browser wars are heating up again, this time with AI in the driver’s seat. OpenAI just launched Atlas, a ChatGPT-powered browser that lets users surf the web using natural language and even includes an “agent mode” that can complete tasks autonomously. It’s one of the biggest browser launches in recent memory, but it's debuting with an unsolved security flaw that could expose passwords, emails, and sensitive data. On TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Max Zeff, Anthony Ha and Sean O’Kane break down Atlas’s debut, the broader wave of alternative browsers, and more of the week’s...

2025-10-2430 min

Equity From SB 243 to ChatGPT: Why it's ‘not cool to be cautious’ about AISilicon Valley’s rule? It’s not cool to be cautious. As OpenAI removes guardrails and VCs criticize companies like Anthropic for supporting AI safety regulations, it’s becoming clearer who the industry thinks should shape AI development. On this episode of Equity, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Max Zeff discuss how the line between innovation and responsibility is getting blurrier, plus what happens when pranks go from digital to physical. Listen to the full episode to hear about: The real-world DDoS attack that blocked Waymo service for a day near a dead-end San Franc...

2025-10-1730 min

Big Technology Podcast The Sora 2 Breakthrough, Death Of The Creator Economy?, Apple’s SmartGlasses RoadmapMax Zeff, Sr. AI reporter at Techcrunch, joins for our weekly discussion of the latest tech news. We cover: 1) OpenAI introduces Sora 2 2) Will these AI video feeds catch on? 3) Is Sora 2 an important technological advance above all? 4) Why Meta is nervous about OpenAI's momentum in social 5) OpenAI employees have mixed feelings about Sora 6) Why AI video feeds may be the end of the creator economy. 7) Why they may not be 8) Meta will use AI chats to train its ad models 9) Meta's AI research moves more toward product development 10) Anthropic launches its Sonnet 4.5 model 11) Apple prioritizes smart glasses 12) Max tries...

2025-10-0457 min

Equity AI slop, government stops, and startup uncertaintyThe U.S. government shutdown that began this week is the first in seven years. While it might not feel immediately disruptive, for startups waiting on permits, visas, or regulatory approvals, even a few weeks can become an existential problem. On this episode of Equity, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Max Zeff talk through how uncertainty is affecting startups in ways people might not realize, plus the messy reality of AI companies still trying to figure out sustainable business models. Listen to the full episode to hear about: OpenAI’s launch of the Sor...

2025-10-0332 min

Equity From $100B OpenAI deals to $100K visa feesFrom $100 billion OpenAI commitments to $100,000 visa fees, this week showed just how much the tech landscape is shifting. On the latest episode of Equity, Anthony Ha and Max Zeff unpack the AI infrastructure gold rush and tech's talent shuffle. Listen to the full episode to hear about: TikTok’s potential new home, and why Oracle is positioned to win big from the deal Oura Health's reported $875M raise at an $11B valuation and what it means for health tech Nvidia's $500M investment in UK self-driving startup Wayve and Jensen Huang's billion-dollar UK commitment ...

2025-09-2626 min

Equity Live demo fails, AI safety wins, and the Golden Age of RoboticsThis week on Equity, Anthony Ha, Kirsten Korosec, and Max Zeff unpack the biggest moves in AI, robotics, and regulation. Listen to the full episode to hear about: Meta Connect's AR/AI vision and neural wristband control (plus the demos that didn't go as planned) Jack Altman's rapid $275M fundraise and the Altman brothers' expanding Silicon Valley influence The Waymo-Lyft partnership bringing robotaxis to Nashville and the hunt for profitable AV models California's new AI safety legislation and what it means for Big Tech Why investors may soon call...

2025-09-1934 min

Equity Mercor has its moment in the AI data raceLeading AI labs like OpenAI and Google DeepMind cut ties with Scale AI after Meta invested $14 billion in the data vendor and hired its CEO. But AI labs still need data — leaving an opening for other startups that can supply it. The key players and factors in the AI data market are changing. Lately, it seems like Mercor — an AI hiring platform that sells data services to AI labs — may be one of the biggest benefactors of this shift. Today on Equity, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, Max Zeff dive deeper into how the AI data market is changin...

2025-09-1228 min

Equity Atlassian’s $610M bet, and why everyone’s fighting over your browserGoogle just dodged a Chrome breakup bullet, but the biggest twist? The federal judge bought the idea that AI rivals could keep the tech giant in check, even as new competitors gain ground. From Atlassian’s $610 million bet on The Browser Company to OpenAI’s latest maneuvers, the competition for how we navigate the web is just getting started. Today on Equity, Max Zeff and Anthony Ha break down the week’s biggest moves and how AI is fracturing the search monopoly while reshaping how we browse the web and invest in its future. Listen to the...

2025-09-0527 min

Equity Trillion with a ‘T’? That’s a lot of dollars, Nvidia.Nvidia reported another massive quarter this week with $46.7 billion in revenue, a 56% year-over-year increase driven almost entirely by AI demand. But despite CEO Jensen Huang's bold prediction of $3 to 4 trillion in global AI infrastructure spending in the next five years, the stock slid as investors questioned how long this kind of growth can last. Today on Equity, Kirsten Korosec, Max Zeff, and Anthony Ha dive into Nvidia's earnings and what the market's response reveals about investor confidence in the AI boom's longevity. Listen to the full episode to hear: Who made the cut...

2025-08-2930 min

Equity Beanie Babies for the brainrot eraOn today’s episode of the Equity podcast, your hosts Kirsten Korosec, Max Zeff, and Anthony Ha try to understand why Labubu has become so popular and what it says about the collapsing divide between the internet and the real world. Are Labubus more than just the latest iteration of ‘90s Beanie Babies? And listen to the full episode to hear more about: Google’s cringey, celebrity-filled Pixel event Self-driving startup Nuro’s $203 million Series A, with Nvidia joining as an investor OpenAI’s attempt to woo the media after a rocky laun...

2025-08-2229 min

Equity From Meta’s massive offers to Anthropic’s massive valuation, does AI have a ceiling?Meta is still going all-in on the AI talent war, with Mark Zuckerberg reportedly reaching out to top recruits himself, throwing around jaw-dropping compensation packages that top $1 billion over multiple years. And Meta’s latest target? Mira Murati's new startup, Thinking Machines Lab. It's a bold play in an already overheated market. While Zuck eyes new talent, Anthropic is preparing to raise a massive round of its own at a staggering $170 billion valuation, nearly tripling its worth in just months. On paper, it looks like the AI cash floodgates are wide open. But all this endless money ra...

2025-08-0132 min

Equity Should Silicon Valley celebrate Trump's AI plans?The big AI companies seem to be in a celebratory mood after President Donald Trump unveiled his AI Action Plan — not surprising, perhaps, since the plan was shaped by Trump's Silicon Valley allies. Today, on TechCrunch's Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Max Zeff, and Anthony Ha look at how the Trump administration plans to reshape the AI landscape, making it harder for environmental regulators to block data center construction, for state governments to oversee AI development and safety, and for tech companies to develop what conservatives see as "woke" AI. Listen to the full episode to...

2025-07-2537 min

Equity Why Hugging Face's new robot is the Seinfeld of AI devicesHugging Face just launched Reachy Mini, an open source AI robot with big googly eyes and not much utility, and that’s kind of the charm. On this episode of Equity Kirsten Korosec, Max Zeff, and Anthony Ha break down the bot's debut, why it’s giving Seinfeld energy, and what it says about the future of open source hardware. Listen to the full episode to hear more news from the week, including: Grok’s wild week and Linda Yaccarino’s abrupt exit from X How Rivian’s micromobility spinoff, Also, snagged another $200 million to...

2025-07-1130 min

Equity Why Cloudflare wants AI companies to pay for contentCloudflare wants AI companies to pay up. The cloud infrastructure provider is launching a new experiment called Pay per Crawl that would let publishers charge AI firms every time their bots scrape a site, and it could reshape how content is accessed and monetized online. Today on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec and Max Zeff dig into Cloudflare’s big swing, why it’s a natural next step after a year of laying groundwork for bot-blocking tools, and whether the plan to sit at the center of a pay-for-content protocol is genius…or just wishful thinking...

2025-07-0329 min

Equity Big Tech lands an early win in legal battles against publishersThis week, two major AI companies scored early wins in court, with federal judges siding with Meta and Anthropic in separate lawsuits over how their models were trained on copyrighted material. The decisions represent the first real legal validation of AI companies’ argument that training models on books, images, and other creative works can be considered “fair use” — even if those materials weren’t obtained with permission. It’s a big deal for companies building generative AI, and a potential turning point for the many lawsuits still in motion. Today, on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Max Zeff...

2025-06-2735 min

Equity Could OpenAI fill Microsoft’s shoes?OpenAI recently announced a $200 million deal with the U.S. Department of Defense, which has us wondering: Could this further strain the company’s relationship with its biggest backer, Microsoft? After all, there have been numerous reports about growing tensions between the two companies, particularly as they become more competitive over enterprise deals. Today, on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Anthony Ha and Max Zeff discuss how the OpenAI/DoD deal reflects Silicon Valley’s increasingly cozy relationship with the military and why industry leaders are calling for an AI “arms race.” Listen to the ful...

2025-06-2042 min

Equity Inside Anthropic's AI Ambitions with Jared KaplanInstead of our usual Friday news rundown, we’re bringing you a conversation from this week’s TC Sessions: AI event out in San Francisco. Our friend and co-host Max Zeff sat down with Jared Kaplan, Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer at Anthropic. If you’ve been following Anthropic, you’ll know it’s been a busy year for the AI startup. Back in March, the company announced it raised $3.5 billion at a $61.5 billion valuation in a round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. Since then, it’s launched a blog for its Claude models and, according to Bloomberg re...

2025-06-0630 min

Equity Elon dips from DOGE, and Silicon Valley enters the 'find out' stageElon Musk has officially announced he’s stepping down as a U.S. special government employee and the de facto head of the Department of Government Efficiency, better known as DOGE. The move follows Musk’s cooling relationship with the Trump administration and slumping Tesla sales tied to his political advocacy. Today on Equity, Kirsten, Max and Anthony unpack who else is departing DOGE, and why Silicon Valley’s relationship with politics is entering, as Kirsten put it, the “find out” stage. Listen to the full episode for more of the week’s tech headlines including:

2025-05-3030 min

Equity OpenAI goes all in with Jony Ive as Google plays AI catchupOpenAI just made its biggest acquisition yet, scooping up Jony Ive and Sam Altman’s secretive device startup, io, in a $6.5 billion all-equity deal. Ive, the legendary designer behind the iPhone and other iconic Apple products, will now lead creative and design work at OpenAI through his firm LoveFrom. The goal? To take AI “beyond the screen” and build a new generation of AI-powered consumer devices. Beyond the tech, there’s a clear narrative play here. OpenAI is framing Altman as the Jobs-esque visionary and Ive as the design genius who makes it all real. Social media had a fi...

2025-05-2333 min

Equity Serve is betting that food delivery and access to public markets are the keys to scaling roboticsToday on Equity, Rebecca Bellan caught up with Ali Kashani, co-founder and CEO of Serve Robotics, to unpack how Serve is navigating public markets, scaling real-world robotics, and building what it hopes is the future of last-mile delivery. Listen to the full episode to hear more about: How Serve went from a lidar-focused startup to a publicly traded company via reverse merger in 2023 What it takes to scale a delivery fleet across cities like L.A., Miami, and Dallas Why Kashani says Serve’s sidewalk bots collect four times more visual da...

2025-05-2130 min

Equity $1 Billion a lot of money these days?Databricks just snatched up another AI company. This week, data analytics giant announced a $1 billion acquisition of Neon, a startup building an open-source alternative to AWS Aurora Postgres. It’s the latest in a spree of high-profile buys, joining MosaicML and Tabular, as Databricks positions itself as the place to build, deploy, and scale AI-native applications. Today, on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Max Zeff, and Anthony Ha unpack the Databricks–Neon deal, where Neon’s serverless Postgres tech fits into the larger vision, and whether $1 billion still counts as “a lot of money” thes...

2025-05-1623 min

Equity Meta's speeding up the "Mad Men to Math Men" pipelineAt Stripe’s Sessions conference this week, Mark Zuckerberg pitched what he calls the “ultimate business machine”: a fully automated, end-to-end AI ad engine promising to replace agencies, creatives, and media buyers. You just need to connect your bank account first. Zuckerberg claims this could be one of the most valuable AI systems ever built, generating thousands of image ads and testing them in real time, but it raises a bigger question: is this the future of advertising, or just another wave of AI slop flooding your feed? Today, on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten K...

2025-05-0931 min

Equity Damn, the Cluely ragebait got usWhat if cheating was just…the future of work? That’s the pitch behind Cluely, the viral AI startup that claims its stealthy browser overlay is “undetectable” and can help users bluff their way through everything from job interviews to exams. The company has raised $5.3 million and sparked a wave of backlash from startups building tools to catch cheaters. Cluely’s response? They’ll just build smart glasses or brain chips. Today, on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Max Zeff and Anthony Ha are getting into the week’s headlines, including whether Cluely’s viral strategy is genius...

2025-05-0229 min

Equity Is the SPAC back?Today, on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Max Zeff and Anthony Ha are unpacking the week’s news, including the possible return of the SPAC in an uncertain IPO market. It’s a curious moment for a public debut, as Kirsten points out, especially after so much chatter that 2025 would be the big comeback year for blockbuster IPOs, but some major players like Klarna and StubHub have already hit pause. And as investor Mark Goldberg put it on this week’s show, folks holding their breath for a fintech IPO wave this year “are going to be blue in th...

2025-04-1829 min

Equity Meta's Llama drama and how Trump's tariffs could hit moonshot projectsMeta dropped three new models over the weekend: Scout, Maverick, and the still-training Behemoth, billed as the next evolution of “open-ish” AI. But instead of excitement, the response was mostly shrugs. Critics called the release underwhelming, saying it lacked the edge expected in today’s breakneck AI race. Meta’s clear attempt to claw back some attention quickly turned messy. Accusations began circulating on X and Reddit around benchmark tampering, a mystery ex-employee, and large gaps between the models’ public and private performance.Today, on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Max Zeff and Anthony...

2025-04-1132 min

Equity Why prediction markets are going mainstream with Kalshi CEO Tarek MansourKalshi is the largest prediction market in America, building a unique trading economy around political, sports, and cultural events. While some states view it as an illegal operation requiring gambling licenses, others—including certain courts and members of the Trump administration—see it as a groundbreaking financial opportunity.On this episode of Equity, Max Zeff sits down with Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour at the latest StrictlyVC event in San Francisco. Mansour shares why he sees Kalshi as a global source of truth. Listen to the full episode to hear more...

2025-04-0918 min

Equity Spy games in HR tech: Inside Rippling’s wild lawsuit against DeelRippling’s latest lawsuit reads less like a legal filing and more like the plot of a corporate espionage thriller, complete with secret crypto payments, an alleged mole, and a fake Slack channel trap.This week, the HR tech startup publicly named the employee at the center of its case against its rival Deel, claiming the company paid him thousands to spy from the inside. Deel, however, is not staying quiet. The company is denying the claims, calling it a dramatic distraction from Rippling’s own legal troubles.Today, on T...

2025-04-0425 min

Equity Inside the Google-Wiz acquisition and the deal's biggest winnersIt was on, then off, and welp, now it's on again — and this time for a lot more money. Yep, the Equity podcast dug into Google's $32 billion acquisition of cloud security startup Wiz. There was a lot to unpack: the why, the how, what it means.And of course, there was the "who wins" part. Sequoia is takes home the VC prize for total payout. But another plucky VC out of Israel called Cyberstarts had the largest percentage win. Tune in to find out just how much, plus the crew's other insights on the de...

2025-03-2126 min

Equity OpenAI and Microsoft’s ‘frenemies relationship,’ and what you missed at SXSWThis week, OpenAI inked a five-year, $11.9 billion deal with CoreWeave, the GPU-heavy cloud provider, securing its own AI computing pipeline—and a $350 million equity stake in the company.With CoreWeave’s pending IPO and deep ties to Microsoft, OpenAI’s deal marks a significant shift in the AI cloud wars. Today, on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Max Zeff, Anthony Ha, and Rebecca Bellan are diving into whether or not the deal is a power move against Microsoft or just an inevitable step in OpenAI’s bid for more compute, key deals of the week, and what y...

2025-03-1430 min

Equity The California AI bill is back, and it lost its teethCalifornia’s most controversial AI safety bill of 2024 might be dead, but its author isn't backing down. State Senator Scott Weiner is back with SB 53, a new AI bill that strips away the most debated parts of last year’s failed legislation while keeping key whistleblower protections and a public cloud computing initiative called CalCompute.With the AI industry and even the federal government shifting away from AI safety regulation in favor of innovation, will the bill gain any traction? Today, on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Max Zeff and Anthony Ha are unpacking the latest...

2025-03-0729 min

Equity Every year, it seems like there's at least one big YC controversyToday, on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Max Zeff and Anthony Ha are breaking down the week’s biggest stories, including the Optifye.ai controversy, the wider concerns about AI in labor, and why this demo could be a glimpse of what's coming next.Listen to the full episode to hear about: Amazon’s Alexa unveiling this week in NYC, and why an AI-enabeled Alexa+ could make the competition sweat Why the departure of Lucid Motors' CEO Peter Rawlinson is raising concerns about the company's future Bridgetown Research’s $19 million raise to automa...

2025-02-2828 min

Equity AI Wearables 1.0: Was Humane’s AI Pin too ambitious?Humane’s AI Pin, which promised to replace your smartphone with a sleek wearable device, is officially dead. After a rocky launch, negative reviews, and returns outpacing sales, the startup is shutting down and selling its assets to HP for $116 million – less than half of what it raised. But what’s next for Humane’s tech?On today's episode of Equity, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Max Zeff and Anthony Ha are breaking down the week’s tech and startup headlines, including what HP might do with Humane’s resources and talent and how, as Max put it, the AI Pin was c...

2025-02-2129 min

Equity Elon Musk and Sam Altman are basically in a rap battleTensions are running high in the AI world this week after Elon Musk made a staggering $97.4 billion bid to buy OpenAI, a move that would mark one of the largest tech acquisitions in history – if it actually happens. Sam Altman shut the notion down fast, even going so far as to fire back with a post suggesting he’d buy X for a tenth of the price. But Musk’s bid itself does raise questions about potential roadblocks ahead for OpenAI.Today, on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Max Zeff and Anthony Ha are breaking down the...

2025-02-1430 min

Equity Are companies falling out of love with OpenAI?Humanoid robotics company Figure raised eyebrows this week when it announced it would be stepping away from a partnership with OpenAI in favor of building its own in-house AI models. Figure CEO Brett Adcock alluded to a “major breakthrough” in their own process and plans to unveil “something no one has ever seen on a humanoid” in the coming month. Figure isn’t the only company experimenting with non-OpenAI solutions either. Just last week, researchers from Stanford and the University of Washington demonstrated that it’s possible to train a highly capable “reasoning” model for under $50 in cloud compute cre...

2025-02-0729 min

Equity DeepSeek: separating fact from hypeToday, we’re bringing you a bonus episode zeroing in on DeepSeek, the Chinese AI lab that’s recently taken over the news and the app stores, beating out OpenAI's ChatGPT. Max Zeff is talking about it all with Ion Stoica, Professor of Computer Science Division at UC Berkeley and the cofounder and executive chairman of software startup Databricks.Listen to the full episode to hear more about: Why Stoica believes the future of AI lies in "doubling down on open source." Microsoft's decision to host DeepSeek on Azure. What the U.S. can do to fost...

2025-02-0125 min

Equity DeepSeek lights a fire under Silicon ValleyDeepSeek, DeepSeek, DeepSeek. We couldn’t escape the headlines around the Chinese AI lab this week. The startup -- which claims to have built its models more efficiently and at a fraction of the cost of competitors -- lit a fire under Silicon Valley after releasing its R1 “reasoning” model and displacing ChatGPT as the App Store’s top app. Today, on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Margaux MacColl and Max Zeff are digging into the latest news, including the reactions from both tech giants and the U.S. government, which is increasingly concerned that China is p...

2025-01-3129 min

Equity $5B livestream shopping apps, Nvidia reveals, and the weirdest tech at CESAs CES 2025 comes to a close, TechCrunch’s Equity podcast hosts Kirsten Korosec, Margaux MacColl, Anthony Ha, and Max Zeff are back on the mic to discuss the week's top news, the tech that caught their eye, and the companies still figuring out AI.Listen to the full episode to hear: What's driving Meta's push for “more speech, fewer mistakes” as it ends its third-party fact-checking program. Livestream shopping app Whatnot's $265M raise, and which companies could be capitalizing on livestream shopping next. Who is Peterson Conway, and why is he defense tech’s wildest power broker...

2025-01-1035 min

Equity What’s next for Bluesky? CEO Jay Graber on growth, community, and decentralizationHappy new year, Equity listeners! At the end of 2024, all eyes were on Bluesky's rapid growth. According to the social platform’s CEO Jay Graber, however, their goal is not just to recreate Twitter. Today, Rebecca is handing the reins over to TechCrunch senior reporter Max Zeff, who sat down with Graber at our last StrictlyVC event.Listen to the full episode to hear pair dig into the company’s success and why, according to Graber, people need to, “be able to control the social networks they communicate on," regardless of whether that continues to be Bluesky or ano...

2025-01-0222 min

Equity Are AI companies just defense tech now?This week, the Equity pod gang — which included newcomer Max Zeff, Margaux MacColl, and Kirsten Korosec — noticed an emerging trend: the worlds of AI and defense tech are colliding. Listen to the full episode to hear about: A new fund is in town. And surprise, surprise, Humba Ventures' $40 million fund is focused on deep tech and defense. How enterprise AI startup Cohere is unlike all the other AI startups out there, and why they've been so quiet. Particularly in this new deal with Palantir. Dig into the great philosophical question of 2024: is it dumb to IPO in an...

2024-12-2031 min

Equity Equity Monday: China hates crypto, and the Vision Fund's vision lives onHello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest private market news, talks about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can follow the show on Twitter here and myself here.Our live show is this week! And we're very excited about it! Details here, and you can register here. It's free, of course, so swing by and hang with u...

2021-06-2107 min

Equity Owning the paycheck is the key to fintech successHello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This week, Natasha and Danny, otherwise known as your two new favorite Book influencers (inside joke, you'll get if you listen to the show), hopped on the mics to take everyone threw the news, with Grace and Chris in the background.Here's what we got into: Wise announced plans to go public via direct listing, making it the biggest company to use this route to debut on the London Stock Exchange. Andreessen Horowitz goes into pu...

2021-06-1834 min

Equity Every startup needs an in-house senateHello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.For this week’s deep dive, Natasha and Danny unpacked the Expensify EC-1, which includes a ton of surprises, building tips, and, as we discuss in the show, some life lessons as well. This is our largest EC-1 to date, and is the result of six months of prodigious work from the inimitable Anna Heim. Of course, we had to add our Equity spin on the feature and boiled down our favorite musings into a succinct episode.He...

2021-06-1617 min

Equity What does Uber and birth control have in common?Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This is Equity Monday, our morning coffee chat with you that is all about the weekend, what to expect this week, and some funding rounds you may have missed. I'm subbing in for Alex Wilhelm today, who is deservedly out on vacation. You can find me on Twitter @nmasc_, and Equity on Twitter (turn on those notifications!) @equitypod. Biden and world leaders are congregating at the NATO summit, which kicks off this week. Also, the Dublin Tech...

2021-06-1408 min

Equity The huge TAM of fake breaded chicken bitsHello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.We're closing our survey soon, so this is your last chance (probably) to get your voice heard!Despite it being a short week, as always, it was a busy, busy time. We had Grace on the dials today, and Danny, Natasha, and Alex making chit-chat about the tech world. As with every week this year, we had to cut and cut and cut to get the show down to size. Here's what made it in in the...

2021-06-1130 min

Equity The imbalanced landscape of hormonal healthFor this week’s deep dive, Alex, Natasha, and Chris dug into the world of hormonal health, a sub-sector within the massive (and booming) world of digital health.The show was inspired by Natasha's latest Extra Crunch piece: "Hormonal Health is a massive opportunity: Where are the unicorns?". To round out the show, we asked one of the featured founders, Dr. Elizabeth Ruzzo, to hop on the mic and help us understand if hormonal health is at its infancy, or at an inflection point, in tech.The tl;dr before we hop into the show is...

2021-06-0925 min

Equity Equity Monday: Jeff's going to space, and everyone wants a piece of FlipkartHello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest private market news, talks about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can follow the show on Twitter here and myself here.It's WWDC week, so expect a deluge of Apple news to overtake your Twitter feed here and there over the next few days. But there's a lot more going...

2021-06-0707 min

Equity Amazon is now open to getting suedDespite it being a short week, as always, it was a busy busy time. Our regular Friday producer Grace was under the weather today, so Chris stepped in to help out.And as noted at the top of the episode, we're running a survey. The survey is here, dear Equity family. Please fill it out so that we can keep making the show better.That aside, here's what Danny and Natasha and Alex got into: Stack Overflow has a new owner, and a $1.8 billion sale price that is minting 61 new millionaires in the process. ...

2021-06-0428 min

Equity Why sports tech is bigger than a gameFor this week’s deep dive, Alex and Natasha dug into the burgeoning of sports media, sports gaming, and fantasy sports world today through the lens of some early-stage startups. Naturally, the Equity team is what comes to mind when you consider the correct and right people to discuss sports. We are here to back up your priors.Jokes aside, we had a good time digging into the following: THE GIST raised $1 million. Both Natasha and Alex were very bullish on the company's product, focus, and market. Especially in light of some recent media deals that ha...

2021-06-0217 min

Equity Equity Tuesday: Everyone is raising money at the same timeHello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This is Equity Tuesday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest private market news, talks about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can follow the show on Twitter here and myself here.We are back from a long weekend here in America. But not break here in the States can stop the flow of global tech news. So, here's the rundow...

2021-06-0107 min

Equity The SPAC trash ticker is counting downHello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This week had the whole crew aboard to record: Grace and Chris making us sound good, Danny to provide levity, Natasha to actually recall facts, and Alex to divert us from staying on topic. It's teamwork, people - and our transitions are proof of it.And it's good that we had everyone around the virtual table as there was quite a lot to get through: Team felt all kinds of ways about the Amazon-MGM deal. Som...

2021-05-2832 min

Equity Cataclysms are a growth industryFor this week’s deep dive, Alex and Natasha dug into Danny's latest mega-project: A long, fascinating, and deeply-reported series into the world of disaster tech. It's all about the market, startups, and their backers, so it was perfect fare for our Wednesday episode, in which we dive deep into a single topic.Part 1: The most disastrous sales cycle in the worldPart 2: Data was the new oil, until the oil caught firePart 3: When the Earth is gone, at least the internet will still be workingPart 4: The human-focused startups of...

2021-05-2623 min

Equity Equity Monday: Crypto's awful weekend, Apple v. Epic, and funding rounds galoreHello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest private market news, talks about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can follow the show on Twitter here and myself here.After a somewhat quiet weekend, things are kicking off in rapid-fire fashion this week. Here's what you need to know: The cryptocurrency selloff that was in full-swing on Fri...

2021-05-2407 min

Equity LinkedIn is the reason Apple made the M1 chipHello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This week was good fun not only because we had the whole team together to record, but also because we are still basking in the endless glory of our winning a Webby earlier this week. Frankly we are still shocked. But happy-shocked, like when you get a new toy and it is covered in static electricity.Anyhoo, we had a packed show with much, much left on the floor as we tried to shoehorn the week into...

2021-05-2130 min

Equity What has four wheels and loses money?This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single topic and go deep. This time Natasha and Alex corralled TechCrunch transportation editor Kirsten Korosec to talk to us about the endless parade of EV SPACs, and more. Before we get into the show notes, you can follow Equity on Twitter here.https://twitter.com/kirstenkorosec/status/1394726967203667969And, because we are proud, we won a Webby! Our show! How cool is that? Thank you for love listening, hate listening, all of it. We are so thankful.Ok, here's what we talked...

2021-05-1923 min

Equity Equity Monday: Elon Musk Elon Musk's the crypto markets, while Indian startups raise huge roundsHello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest private market news, talks about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can follow the show on Twitter here and myself here.There was lots to get through today, so, in order, here's the rundown: Early-stage founders can still apply for the impending Disrupt Battlefield even. You can sign up her...

2021-05-1709 min

Equity Hundreds of SPACs waiting in the woodsHello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.The fully-vaxxed and officially fully-immune took over the podcast this week, with Natasha and Danny co-hosting the show while the inimitable Alex is out from Shot #2. Grace and Chris, as always, were behind the scenes making sure we sound pretty and don't fall down too many punny board game rabbit holes after vacation.Here's the rundown of what we got into: Crypto crashed - thanks to either Elon or the guy who created Ethereum and then...

2021-05-1433 min

Equity Duolingo swipes Tinder in a Clash RoyaleFor this week’s deep dive, Alex and Danny unpacked Natasha's latest project: The Duolingo EC-1. The 12,000 word four-part series was published last week and is worth a read. But, until you get to it, enjoy our podcast that doubles-clicks into its most interesting bits.[caption id="attachment_2146587" align="aligncenter" width="482"] Duo, Duolingo's mascot, flying around. Image Credits: Duolingo [/caption]Here's how it went, after we got our morning allergy banter out of the way: What's an EC-1? A TechCrunch-style deep-dive into one of the startup world's most promising, and interesting companies. Wha...

2021-05-1218 min

Equity Equity Monday: Dogecoin is passé, but student notes are big businessHello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest private market news, talks about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can follow the show on Twitter here and myself here.This weekend was all about memecoins. And I am sorry about that. But Equity doesn't run the world, sadly, it merely notes what is going on: Dogecoin droppe...

2021-05-1007 min

Equity If 12% is the new 30%, 4% is the new 12%Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.The whole team was aboard for this recording, with Grace and Chris behind the scenes, and Danny, Alex, and Natasha on the mics. We had to cut more than we included this week, which should give you a good idea of how busy the startup and VC worlds are of late.Make sure that you are following the podcast on Twitter, where we post all sorts of memes and cuts and, perhaps, the occasional video here and...

2021-05-0733 min

Equity The morality and efficacy of going public earlierFor this week’s deep dive Natasha and Alex and Chris dug into the world of the IPO. Not just the numbers and the metrics and the calculations of valuations at diluted, and non-diluted share counts. No. We wanted to talk about the morality and efficacy of going public.So to round out our conversation we enlisted Steve Cakebread, the CFO of Yext and Garth Mitchell, the CFO of Latch. Cakebread is known for being aboard the Salesforce, Pandora, and Yext's IPOs. Mitchell has sat on both sides of the table during the IPO process, and is cu...

2021-05-0524 min

Equity Equity Monday: TechCrunch goes Yahoo while welding robots raise $56MHello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest private market news, talks about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can follow the show on Twitter here and myself here.This morning was a notable one in the life of TechCrunch the publication, as our parent company's parent company decided to sell our parent company to a different parent...

2021-05-0310 min

Equity The second shot is kicking inHello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.First and foremost, Equity was nominated for a Webby for “Best Technology Podcast”! Drop everything and go Vote for Equity! We’d appreciate it. A lot. And even if we lose, well, we’ll keep doing our thing and making each other laugh. (Note: we are in last place, which is, well, something.)Regardless, the Equity team got together once again this week to not only go over the news of the week, but also to do a little...

2021-04-3031 min

Equity In a room with no smart speaker, Alexa can't hear you screamFor this week’s deep dive Natasha and Alex and Danny and Chris dove into the world of audio. Sure, you've heard of Clubhouse, but there's lots more going on than just a single app's cultural rise. So from the biggest companies to niche startups, we compiled all the recent audio news into a single show for all our delectation.Here's the rundown: Facebook is building a number of audio products, including a Clubhouse clone and a short-form audio service that we think could be neat. Reddit is also building a Clubhouse-like service, and Alex is ex...

2021-04-2822 min

Equity Equity Monday: Social media crackdowns, earnings, and a funding delugeHello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest private market news, talks about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can follow the show on Twitter here and myself here.This weekend had a key story, earnings are on the way, and there is a huge number of funding rounds to talk about. Ready? The Indian government's mo...

2021-04-2607 min

Equity No one is talking about remote work from spaceFirst and foremost, Equity was nominated a Webby for "Best Technology Podcast"!!! Drop everything and go Vote for Equity! We'd appreciate. A lot. And even if we lose, well, we'll keep doing our thing and making each other laugh.Natasha and Danny and Alex and Chris got together to chat through the week's biggest news. And like every other week in recent memory, it was a busy one. But we did our best to hit some M&A news, some unicorn news, and some funding news from smaller startups.Now, onto the show rundown, here's...

2021-04-2332 min

Equity The rise of the next Coinbase, thanks to CoinbaseFor this week’s deep dive Natasha and Alex and Danny wanted to chat crypto. No, not cryptography, but cryptocurrency. The topic has been hot in recent months thanks to Coinbase, recent weeks thanks to the rapid price appreciation in the value of many coins, and in recent days because dogecoin went crazy.Vote for Equity to win a Webby so that our parents are proud!So with our minds tuned to the future of money, and commerce, and content, here's the show's rundown: Recent crypto news has been more than busy, with Venmo ad...

2021-04-2120 min

Equity Equity Monday: Clubhouse, UiPath, and the crypto flash crashHello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest private market news, talks about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can follow the show on Twitter here and myself here.First, our news roundup from last week was probably the most fun I've had in a few months, so make sure to catch up on that if you haven...

2021-04-1908 min

Equity Do you need a SPAC therapist?Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.Natasha and Danny and Alex and Grace were all here to chat through the week’s biggest tech happenings. It was yet another busy week, but that just means we had a great time putting the show together and recording it. Honestly we have a lot of fun this week, and we hope that you crack a smile while we dig through the latest as a team.Ready? Here's the rundown: The Coinbase direct listing! Here's our...

2021-04-1632 min

Equity Why expensive workout gear is actually cheapFor this week's deep dive Natasha and Alex wanted to dig into the Tonal EC-1, a huge document spread across a number of posts. Our goals were pretty simple: To better understand Tonal's journey, and also to get into the mind of its author.So we corralled JP Mangalindan into firing up his computer, microphone, and recording software for a chat. Here's what we covered: What is Tonal, why is it interesting, and why did JP spend so much time learning about the company? What did he have to leave out of the final report? His...

2021-04-1420 min

Equity Equity Monday: Microsoft buys Nuance, Uber isn't dead, and Austin has a new unicornHello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest private market news, talks about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can follow the show on Twitter here and myself here. It is good to be back!There was a lot to get through, so, in order that we discussed the topics on the show, here's our rundown: Micros...

2021-04-1207 min

Equity Creator economy’s slow burnHello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.Natasha and Danny and and Grace were all here to chat through the week’s rigamarole of news. Alex took some well-deserved time off, but that meant we got to poke a little fun at him and create a Special Edition segment to start off the show.Jokes aside, this week was yet another spree of creator economy, edtech, and new fund announcements, with fresh and unexpected news hailing from Natasha's home state, New Jersey.Here's...

2021-04-0932 min

Equity Introducing: FoundFor this week’s deep dive, the Equity team sat down not with external investors or founders, but with two of our own. Yes, this week, for the first time Natasha and Alex got to break a little internal news instead of focusing on the world outside.Why did we have Jordan Crook and Darrell Etherington on the show? Because we're jazzed to add a second startups-focused podcast to a slowly but surely growing TC podcast network: Found. Found lands April 9, so tune in! The show will focus on talking to early-stage founders about building their company, fr...

2021-04-0718 min

Equity Equity Monday: Edtech consolidation, and Amazon continues to make you like it lessHello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest private market news, talks about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can follow the show on Twitter here and myself here.This morning we took a global look at the news, trying to take in the latest from around our little planet: American stocks are set to rise as...

2021-04-0507 min

Equity Clubhouse will create billions in value and capture none of itHello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.Natasha and Danny and Alex and Grace were all here to chat through the week’s biggest tech happenings. It was a busy week on the IPO front, Danny was buried in getting the Tonal EC-1 out, and Natasha took some time off. But the host trio managed to prep and record a show that was honestly a kick to record, and we think, a pleasure to listen to!So, for your morning walk, here's what we have for...

2021-04-0233 min

Equity Tips for founders thinking about doing a remote acceleratorFor this week’s deep dive, the Equity team got ahold of three founders from the recent Y Combinator batch (more here, and here) to chat through their experiences with a remote accelerator. TechCrunch was curious if the program lived up to founder expectations, how extreme timezone differentials were handled, and how easy it was to build camaraderie during a digital program. Oh, and how their demo day went.Here's who is on the show: Benjamin Croc, a founder at BrioHR (TechCrunch coverage here) Trisha Bantigue, a founder at Queenly (TechCrunch coverage here) Adam Alpert, a fo...

2021-03-3122 min

Equity Equity Monday: Deliveroo, ServiceTitan, and Robinhood for everywhereHello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest private market news, talks about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can follow the show on Twitter here and myself here.This morning was a fun mix of news, including some early-stage and late-stage startups entries, along with the latest from the public markets and the great IPO game. Here's...

2021-03-2908 min

Equity You can only invest if you promise not to read the fine print, ok?Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.Natasha and Danny and Alex and Grace were all here to chat through the week’s biggest tech happenings. News was right back up to a dull roar this week, so we did our best to trim and hone and just bring you the most important things.Here's the rundown: David Dobrik stepped down from Dispo, the photo-sharing app he co-created, this past week after allegations came out about him. We talked about the venture capital ang...

2021-03-2632 min

Equity Equity Crowdfunding is making the private markets publicHello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.For this week’s deep dive, the Equity team brought on Gumroad CEO Sahil Lavingia and Hustle Fund General Partner Elizabeth Yin to talk about equity crowdfunding. It’s been about a week since the SEC increased the equity crowdfunding cap from $1.07 million to $5 million, creating the perfect opportunity to go beyond the dollar amount and understand how the change impacts founders, venture capitalists, retail investors, and future fund managers.Here’s a brief rundown of the show...

2021-03-2433 min

Equity Equity Monday: Deliveroo sets IPO price range as we gear up for Y Combinator weekHello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest private market news, talks about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can follow the show on Twitter here and myself here.If you are paying attention to Y Combinator's demo day this week, our primer is here. And our Friday news roundup is here. With that, let's get into the ne...

2021-03-2208 min

Equity Forget medicine, in the future you might get prescribed appsHello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.Natasha and Danny and Alex and Grace were all here to chat through the week’s biggest tech happenings. This time around we had whatever passes for a quiet week as far as news volume. But that still meant we had to cut stuff and move the rest around. But, once we got done editing the notes doc down, here's what was leftover: Snap acquires Fit Analytics, a fitting technology startup: A far-past TechCrunch Disrupt alone has found a new...

2021-03-1929 min

Equity Pregame Y Combinator with EquityThis is our Wednesday show, where we niche down and focus on a single topic, or theme. This is our sweet spot: going beyond definitions and into the dirty and deep impact of how a phenomenon could impact startups and tech. We are hoping to explore more than answer, and debate more than agree. This week we're riffing on the impending Y Combinator demo day class, all hailing from the Winter 2021 cohort. As we stated on the show, we're not saying that these are the only startups worth looking at. They're simply the startups from the batch that TechCrunch has...

2021-03-1724 min

Equity Equity Monday: Stripe's epic new valuation, Deliveroo's IPO, and WeWork numbersHello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest private market news, talks about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can follow the show on Twitter here and myself here — and make sure to check out Friday's news-roundup with Danny and Natasha that included some neat notes on search startups. And their chances against Google.So, what did we chat...

2021-03-1509 min

Equity Can you beat Google with Google's brains?Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.Natasha and Danny and Alex and Grace were all here to chat through the week’s biggest tech happenings. Like every week, we had to leave a lot of great stuff on the cutting-room floor. But, we did get to touch on a bunch of news that we feel really matters.Also we do wind up talking about a few Extra Crunch pieces, which is where our deeper analysis on news items lives. If the paywall is a bother...

2021-03-1230 min

Equity NFTs are changing cultural value creationHello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down and focus on a single topic, or theme. This is our sweet spot: going beyond definitions and into the dirty and deep impact of how a phenomenon could impact startups and tech. We are hoping to explore more than answer, and debate more than agree.NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, is this week's topic! This is something that you have nearly certainly heard of in the past few we...

2021-03-1028 min

Equity Equity Monday: More money for fintech, Deliveroo's IPO, and AI startupsHello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest private market news, talks about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can follow the show on Twitter here and myself here — and make sure to check out our Friday show that featured the Square-Tidal deal, some recent IPOs, and some super-neat rounds.Much like today's show, if I am being ho...

2021-03-0809 min

Equity SoftBank makes mountains of cash off of human lazinessHello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.Natasha and Danny and Alex and Grace were all here to chat through the week’s biggest tech happenings. It was yet another crazy week, but did our best to get through as much of it as we could. Here's the rundown, in case you are reading along with us! Square is buying Tidal in a deal that some are skeptical of, but one about which we found quite a lot to like. How capital-as-a-service can get you your fi...

2021-03-0532 min

Equity $100 million for mealwormsHello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the number behind the headlines.This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down and focus on a single topic, or theme. This week we're talking agtech, a surprisingly cool bit of the technology startup world. But Chris and Danny and Natasha and Alex were not alone in their quest to take a look into agtech, we brought alone TechCrunch climate editor Jon Shieber for the ride.With his help we got through a number of pretty damn interesting things, including:...

2021-03-0319 min

Equity Equity Monday: More venture money for Europe, and public companies blast offHello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest private market news, talks about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can follow the show on Twitter here and myself here — and be sure to check out our most recent Friday episode, which featured news on Finix and Coinbase and Reddit, among others.(Also don't forget that Equity is growing...

2021-03-0107 min

Equity Why are we still dating LinkedIn in 2021?Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.Natasha and Danny and Alex and Grace were all here to chat through the week’s biggest tech happenings. Before we get into this week's show, make sure to check out all the news here about how Equity is expanding, and becoming even more of a thing in 2021! We are beyond hyped about it.Coming on the back of such a wild news week, we had to cut and cut from the notes doc to get the show to...

2021-02-2628 min

Equity SpaceX is really just SPAC and an exHello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This is our first-ever Wednesday episode. If you want to learn more about the latest edition of the podcast, head here for more. This week we talked about space, an increasingly active part of the global economy, and a place where we're seeing more and more young tech companies place their focus.We were lucky to have TechCrunch's Darrell Etherington join us for the show. He's our resident expert, so we had to have him on to...

2021-02-2419 min

Equity Equity Monday: Everyone is going public so what's wrong with your startup?Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest private market news, talks about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can follow the show on Twitter here and myself here — and be sure to check out our last main ep, in which Natasha coins a slogan for a16z that I both hate, and became the headline of the show!But...

2021-02-2208 min

Equity A16z doesn't invest, it manifestsHello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.Natasha and Danny and Alex and Grace were all here to chat through the week’s biggest tech happenings. In very good Show News™, Chris is back! He's working on the next iteration of the show, something that you will be able to see starting Very Soon. Get hype!Today though, we had a delectable dish of dynamic doings, namely news items of the following persuasion: Bitcoin broke the $50,000 barrier, something that we wanted to talk about. Esp...

2021-02-1826 min

Equity Equity Monday: The electric car boom, tech regulation, and some sad American VC dataHello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest private market news, talks about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can follow the show on Twitter here and myself here — and be sure to check out our riff on whether SoftBank has another 20 DoorDashes waiting in the wings.This morning was a more relaxed Monday than I can recall i...

2021-02-1508 min

Equity Does SoftBank have 20 more DoorDashes?Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.Natasha and Danny and Alex and Grace were all here to chat through the week’s biggest tech happenings. This week felt oddly comforting from a tech news perspective: Facebook is copying something, early-stage startup data is flawed enough to talk about, and sweet DoorDash is buying robots for undisclosed sums.So, here's a rundown of the tech news we got into (as always, jokes aren't previewed so you'll have to listen to the actual show to get our...

2021-02-1231 min

Equity Equity Shot: What's next for the startup software marketHello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.Natasha and Danny and Alex and Grace noticed last week that we had a bevy of software-as-a-service (SaaS) stories that we wanted to chat about. So we decided to break them out into their own episode.What came out of the conversation is a mix of optimism, sarcasm, and healthy doubt regarding what's next for SaaS. SaaS matters as it is an incredibly popular business model for startups, a way to generate high-margin recurring incomes. Indeed, it's almo...

2021-02-1014 min

Equity Equity Monday: Tesla buys bitcoin, Nexthink raises, and BumbleHello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest private market news, talks about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can follow the show on Twitter here and myself here — and be sure to check out last week's main ep that dug into Robinhood, Miami, and a host of other topics.This morning we had a pile of news to...

2021-02-0807 min

Equity A lake house architect, a Miami VC, and homeowner walk into a wine barHello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture-capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.Natasha and Danny and Alex and Grace were all here to chat through the week's biggest tech happenings. The good news is that we managed to fit it all into a single episode this week. The bad news is that that means the show is pretty long. Sorry about that!So, what took us so much time to get through? All of this: Robinhood raised $3.4 billion after its trading hiccups, and we also chatted over what we know a...

2021-02-0530 min

Equity Equity Monday: Rich tech folks chat rich tech things on rich tech app funded by rich tech investorsHello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest private market news, talks about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can follow the show on Twitter here and myself here — and make sure to check out last week’s main episode and companion chat about Robinhood.This morning we ran into quite a lot of the same material, with Robinh...

2021-02-0108 min

Equity Why calendar invites are worth $3BHello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.Natasha and Danny and Alex and Grace hopped online for our weekly show, sans Gamestop news (which you can find here) to talk about all the other busy news happening in startup world right now.Here's a taste of what we got into: Qualtrics IPO pricing, and the future of major acquisition pricing schemes. This company's path to the public markets has been a long-time coming, so we had plenty to say. How Atlanta's Calendly turned a s...

2021-01-2929 min