Equity

A baby was born in a Waymo this week, and it wasn't even the first one. 

What started as a novelty story quickly became a reminder of how autonomous vehicles have quietly become part of everyday life, complete with all the messiness that entails. The real coming-of-age story this week, however, wasn't happening in San Francisco's robotaxis. It was playing out in Hollywood, where Netflix made an $82 billion bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery's streaming and studio business. 

Today on TechCrunch's Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec and Anthony Ha discuss what happens when the startup that u...

ElevenLabs has made a name for itself building realistic AI voices.  

What started as two Polish engineers annoyed by terrible movie dubbing has grown into a profitable company now valued at $6.6 billion, doubling its valuation from just nine months ago. The company recently announced a $100 million tender offer led by Sequoia and ICONIQ, with participation from a16z and others, as its tech powers everything from Fortnite characters to customer service bots and goes toe-to-toe with OpenAI to become the default voice of AI. 

Today on TechCrunch's Equity podcast, we’re bringing you a...

AWS announced a wave of new AI agent tools at re:Invent 2025, but can Amazon actually catch up to the AI leaders? While the cloud giant is betting big on enterprise AI with its third-gen chip and database discounts that got developers cheering, it's still fighting to prove it can compete beyond infrastructure. 

This week on Equity, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O'Kane dig into the ROI on AI agents, plus the collision course between Hollywood and generative AI, and why everyone wants their own version of Spotify Wrapped. 

Listen to the full episode to...

Tech is racing ahead while society struggles to keep up. Masha Bucher, founder and GP of Day One Ventures, built her firm around closing that gap by combining venture capital with hands-on PR to help portfolio companies not just raise money, but actually break through the noise.  

Day One's been an early backer of companies like World, Superhuman, and Remote.com, with 12 of its portfolio companies hitting multibillion-dollar valuations. 

Today on TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan sat down with Bucher to talk about why traditional PR is broken, how she picks founders, and why every startup foun...

Vibe coding has taken the tech industry by storm, and it's not just the Lovables and Replits of the world that are winning. The startups building the infrastructure behind them are cashing in too. 

Supabase, the open-source database platform that's become the backend of choice for the vibe-coding world, raised $100 million at a $5 billion valuation just months after closing $200 million at $2 billion. But co-founder and CEO Paul Copplestone has a surprising strategy: he keeps turning down million-dollar enterprise contracts, betting instead that vibe coding will birth the next generation of companies. 

Today on TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Julie Bort s...

Ten years ago, raising €1 million in Copenhagen was enough to make waves in the region’s tech scene. Today, the Nordics are turning out billion-dollar companies like Lovable — which hit $200M in revenue just 12 months after launching. 

Dennis Green-Lieber, founder of AI-powered customer intelligence platform Propane, has had a front-row seat to that shift over the last 15 years. His take? The region's social safety net gives founders room to take real swings without putting their personal lives on the line, and they're accelerating faster than Silicon Valley as a result. 

Today on TechCrunch's...

AI companies are spending so much on infrastructure that Nvidia's data center business now brings in nearly $50 billion. But is this sustainable growth or just the latest tech mania? And should we even be calling it a "bubble" when the belief in AI's future is what's holding the whole ecosystem together? 

This week on Equity, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O'Kane dig into Nvidia's massive earnings beat, the circular economy of AI infrastructure spending, and whether Jensen Huang's optimistic vision of AI agents handling everything in our daily lives can justify the investment. 

Listen to the...

While everyone's chasing the next AI infrastructure play in San Francisco, some of the most defensible AI companies are being built by founders with deep expertise in legacy industries — and they're not getting funded. January Ventures aims to fill that gap, writing pre-seed checks for underrepresented founders transforming healthcare, manufacturing, and supply chain with AI.

At TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, Dominic-Madori Davis sat down with Jennifer Neundorfer, Co-Founder and General Partner at January Ventures, for a live episode of Equity. The pair dug into how early-stage investing is changing in the age of AI and why building different net...

TechCrunch has new podcast! Build Mode brings you candid startup wisdom from the people who build, break, and build again. Build Mode is hosted by our very own Startup Battlefield Editor, Isabelle Johannessen who is joined by founders, investors, and operators to dig into the uncomfortable truths about startup life. Think cap table drama, co-founder breakups, and pivot panic.We're sharing their first episode with Forethought AI co-founder, Deon Nicholas as a weekend bonus to your feed. He shares how he built a company that puts customers (not hype) at the center and unpacks his “7-Failure Rule,” the early expe...

A new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) shows that $580 billion will be spent globally on AI data centers in 2025 alone. This is $40 billion more than will be spent on new oil supplies — leading us to conclude that data centers are the new oil fields. But is this a net positive for the environment or just a different kind of resource drain? 

On TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Rebecca Bellan dig into what this spending shift means for the energy grid, climate tech, and whether taxpayers should be footing the bill for Big Tech's infrastructure...

Many see OpenAI as the ChatGPT company while rivals like Anthropic and Cohere eye the enterprise space. Marc Manara, OpenAI's head of startups, says the reality looks different: AI-native companies are hitting $200 million in ARR, and product cycles have shrunk from two-week sprints to single days. 

Today on TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Russell Brandom sat down with Manara at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 to explore how OpenAI is serving the startups building on its platform. 

Listen to the full episode to hear about: 

The shift from two-week sprints to one-day development cycles, and what that means for ho...

SoftBank and OpenAI announced a new 50-50 joint venture this week to sell enterprise AI tools in Japan under the brand "Crystal Intelligence." On paper, it's a straightforward international expansion deal. But SoftBank’s role as a major investor in OpenAI is raising questions about whether AI's biggest deals are creating real economic value or just moving money in circles. 

On TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha and AI editor Russell Brandom break down why this deal has people skeptical, and what it signals about the sustainability of AI's current investment model. 

Listen to the full epi...

Even Rogers spent a decade as an Air Force weapons officer watching China and Russia build space weapons while the U.S. had "nothing in our arsenal." So he left the military to solve the problem himself. 

Now, as co-founder and CEO of True Anomaly, he's building the first exclusively defense-focused space superiority company, developing autonomous spacecraft, sensors, and software designed specifically for military engagements in orbit. With $418 million raised and a growing team, Rogers is racing to field capabilities the Space Force desperately needs. 

Today on TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan sat down with Rogers to explo...

The 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...

After a small startup exit and being turned down by every VC firm he applied to, Tim Chen began angel investing and eventually stumbled into raising his own fund.  

Now, as the solo investor behind Essence VC, he just closed his fourth fund at $41 million "without even trying." Chen's secret weapon? Being technical enough to debate PhD founders on implementation details while understanding the market dynamics that turn scrappy startups into category leaders. 

Today on TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Julie Bort sat down with Tim Chen to explore the rise of solo VCs and who's rewriting the...

The 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...

Ever wonder if you’re talking to a real person online or just another bot? As bots increasingly outnumber humans online, leading to an explosion of deepfakes and AI-driven fraud, one company has a solution straight out of sci-fi: scanning your iris to verify your identity. 

Today on TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan spoke with Adrian Ludwig, Chief Security Officer and Chief Architect at Tools for Humanity, the company behind World’s eye-scanning Orbs appearing around the globe. Bellan and Ludwig discuss building privacy-first identity verification, the open-source approach to biometric tech, and why proving humanity matters now m...

Silicon 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...

Can performance-enhancing drugs push the limits of human potential? The creators of the Enhanced Games say yes — and they’re building a new sporting event to prove it.  

Backed by Peter Thiel and Donald Trump Jr.’s 1789 Capital, the Enhanced Games aims to disrupt the Olympics with a competition that allows athletes to dope. Launching in Las Vegas in May 2026, the games promise $1 million bounties for breaking world records and lean on a business model reminiscent of Red Bull’s, using the spectacle as marketing for future enhancement products. 

Today on TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan spok...

AI companies are making their much-anticipated enterprise plays, but the results are wildly inconsistent. Just this week, Deloitte announced it's rolling out Anthropic's Claude to all 500,000 employees. On the very same day, the Australian government forced Deloitte to refund a contract because their AI-generated report was riddled with fake citations. It's a perfect snapshot of where we are: companies racing to adopt AI tools before they've figured out how to use them responsibly. 

On this episode of Equity, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O'Kane dig into the messy reality of AI in the workplace, plus funding n...

The Trump administration recently announced a massive change to the H-1B visa program, raising the application fee from $2,000-$5,000 to $100,000 per visa. The change has sent shockwaves through the startup world, with founders warning it could price them out of hiring international talent and undermine U.S. innovation.

Today on TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Dominic-Madori Davis was joined by Jeremy Neufeld, the Director of Immigration Policy at the Institute for Progress, to break down what this H-1B change means for startups, founders, and the future of tech talent in America.

Listen to the full...

The 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...

California just made history as the first state to require AI safety transparency from the biggest labs in the industry. Governor Newsom signed SB 53 into law this week, mandating that AI giants like OpenAI and Anthropic disclose, and stick to, their safety protocols. The decision is already sparking debate about whether other states will follow suit. 

Adam Billen, vice president of public policy at Encode AI, joined Equity to break down what this new law actually means and why it managed to pass its predecessor SB 1047 incurred so much ire from tech companies that Newsom ended up v...

From $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  

Medical device funding is hitting levels we haven't seen since 2021, with investors pouring billions into diagnostics and imaging companies. But while innovation has raced ahead, a fundamental problem still hasn't changed: critical medical hardware like MRI machines cost millions of dollars and are gatekept by large hospitals. So how do you take one of the most expensive, hospital-bound technologies and make it available anywhere?

Evan Kervella, founder and CEO of Paris-based startup Chipiron, joined Equity to walk us through the problem and his vision for solving it.

Listen to the full episode to hear about:<...

This 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...

Europe's startup scene is having a moment, with European unicorns multiplying and American VCs setting up shop across the pond. But while European funding dominates the early stages, late-stage capital still flows primarily from the U.S. So what does this mean for European founders, and how is the continent carving out its own identity in an increasingly AI-driven world?

Today on Equity, we were joined by Shamillah Bankiya, newly appointed Partner at Dawn Capital, to talk through it all. She and Dominic-Madori Davis discuss AI's impact on European startups, the regulatory landscape, and her journey from...

Leading 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...

As AI evolves at breakneck speed, attackers are evolving right alongside it. Vibe coding, AI agents, and prompt-based attacks are opening enterprises up to new vulnerabilities daily. The pressure is on for cybersecurity tools to keep pace, and startups are seizing the moment. Few have grown as rapidly as Wiz, which Google is acquiring for $32 billion in its largest-ever purchase.

On today's episode of Equity, Wiz co-founder and chief technologist Ami Luttwak joined Rebecca Bellan to discuss how AI is fundamentally reshaping cybersecurity threats, from supply chain attacks that leverage vibe coding to hackers targeting the AI...

Google 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...

Karen Hao, the bestselling author of "Empire of AI," has watched OpenAI go from a nonprofit “laughingstock” into a $90 billion powerhouse chasing artificial general intelligence at breakneck speeds. Hao, who first profiled the company back in 2020, says early visions of building AI “for humanity’s benefit” were quickly overtaken by a familiar Silicon Valley mindset: Move fast, break things, and let scale be the measure of success.

This week, Hao joined TechCrunch’s Equity podcast to unpack the direction the AI boom is going and who’s paying the price. Hao argues that, like historical empires, today’s AI giants rely...

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...

Steve Jobs once said, “Everything’s a remix.” And that’s a philosophy that Mark Cuban has taken to heart, building an entire entrepreneurial and investment career on that simple belief. The real opportunity, Cuban says, lies in spotting patterns others miss and turning them into billion-dollar disruptions.

On today's episode of Equity, Cuban joined Rebecca Bellan to discuss his decades-long strategy of betting on technologies before they go mainstream, from his early investments in local area networks and streaming services to his current healthcare and AI ventures. But Cuban's real insight isn't just about picking winners. It's abo...

On 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...

During the SaaS crash of 2022, SecurityPal founder Pukar Hamal was just 14 months from running out of money. Rather than raise another round, he chose to restructure and focus on profitability — and he hasn't raised since his $21M Series A in 2021.

On today's episode of Equity, Hamal chatted with Julie Bort about what he calls "nuanced capital," a strategy focused on achieving cash flow positivity and sustainable growth rather than chasing the next big round. His approach challenges the conventional wisdom that AI companies need constant capital injections to compete, proving that even in competitive markets, there's an al...

Perplexity, the AI search startup that hasn't even cracked 100 million monthly users, just made a $34.5 billion cash offer to buy Chrome from Google.

The unsolicited bid comes as the DOJ prepares its remedy decision after ruling Google illegally maintained a search monopoly. The timing makes sense, but questions remain. Perplexity won't name its backers for the massive deal, and the offer is worth far more than the company has raised.

On ⁠Equity⁠, we're revisiting a conversation with ⁠Neil Chilson⁠, a lawyer, computer scientist and head of AI Policy at the Abundance Institute, to unpack what’s at stake...

Women are making real progress in venture capital, according to a new report from the nonprofit All Raise. The percentage of women and nonbinary partners at top firms has doubled in recent years, even as the market cooled.

On this week’s Equity, All Raise CEO Paige Hendrix Buckner joins TechCrunch’s Dominic-Madori Davis to unpack what’s driving that momentum, and where the industry is still falling short. Pay gaps persist, and the largest firms still have few women in senior partner roles, but there are signs of meaningful change ahead.

Listen to the full e...

OpenAI is making a serious play for the federal government. The company just announced a deal that gives U.S. agencies access to ChatGPT Enterprise for just $1 per year. Yes, really. It’s part of a new “blanket purchase agreement” aimed at getting OpenAI’s tools into federal departments fast and a clear sign the company wants to lock down the public sector before anyone else can.

The move is aggressive, strategic, and could shape how generative AI gets deployed across everything from admin work to national security. It also puts serious pressure on rivals like Anthropic, Google...

Figma managed something rare in today's market: it stayed independent, survived a failed Adobe acquisition, and went public on its own terms. But its post-IPO performance tells a more complex story about startup exits in 2025.

Jai Das, President and Partner at Sapphire Ventures, joined Rebecca Bellan on Equity to discuss what Figma's IPO really signals about the current climate for startup exits. With more than a dozen IPOs under his belt including MuleSoft, Square, and Box, Das broke down Figma's debut, which was 40x oversubscribed and briefly surged to $125 per share before settling closer to $90.

...

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...

If you've been hearing about Trump's AI Action Plan and wondering who it actually benefits, you're not alone.

On today's episode of Equity, Rebecca Bellan caught up with Amba Kak and Dr. Sarah Myers West from the AI Now Institute, a think tank focused on the social implications of AI and the consolidation of power in tech industry. Their recent report, dubbed Artificial Power, lays out the political economy driving today's AI frenzy and what’s at stake for everyone else.

Artificial Power pushes back on what AI Now calls the "too big to fail" my...

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...

AI is entering a new phase where access to top talent is becoming as important as, if not more important than, compute or data. The market for AI researchers is so overheated, it’s starting to look a lot like pro sports — complete with outsized contracts and unprecedented infrastructure needs.

On today’s episode of Equity, Rebecca Bellan chatted with Deedy Das, principal at Menlo Ventures. Das has seen this shift from multiple angles, first as an engineer and product leader at Google, Facebook, and AI startup Glean, and now as an investor helping technical founders figure out ho...

OpenAI’s former chief technology officer, Mira Murati, just raised one of the largest seed rounds in history. Murati secured $2 billion in that seed round for Thinking Machines Lab — a startup so early, it hasn’t even revealed what it’s working on yet. The move is raising eyebrows across Silicon Valley, and it’s only the latest in a wave of top researchers splintering off from OpenAI to chase their own AI moonshots.

Today, on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Rebecca Bellan and Anthony Ha break down what’s fueling the OpenAI talent shuffle, investor enthu...

Hugging Face’s new AI robot, the Reachy Mini, has already racked up $1 million in sales just five days after launch. But the company isn’t trying to build a chore-doing humanoid just yet. Instead, Hugging Face sees the Reachy Mini as a hackable, desk-friendly device that's part entertainment, part entry point for developers and consumers to experiment with AI in physical form.

On this episode of Equity, co-founder Thomas Wolf joins to explain why open-source AI needs hardware, how Hugging Face is thinking about robotics long term, and what might happen if people actually start coding apps...

Hugging 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...

“SaaS is going away,” says Dave Park, co-founder and CEO of Narada AI. The company is betting on a future where AI agents, not humans, navigate enterprise software on our behalf.

Today on Equity, Park joins Rebecca Bellan on Equity to talk about the rise of agentic AI, what it actually is, how it differs from traditional automation, and what real-world changes enterprises need to make to deploy it at scale. The timing for the conversation is ripe: YC’s most recent batch included 70+ agentic startups, and major players like Grammarly are building full AI work stacks throug...

Cloudflare 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...

As the interest in both space and solar grows, one startup aims to merge the two industries. By tapping into the momentum of the commercial space industry and the increasing demand for renewable energy, Robinhood co-founder Baiju Bhatt is on a mission to make space-based solar power a reality with his latest startup: Aetherflux.

Today on Equity, Rebecca Bellan caught up with Bhatt to talk about his transition from fintech to deep tech and why he believes now is the right time to scatter solar power-collecting satellites across the skies. 

Listen to the full episode t...

This 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...

Cow burps are a climate problem, and one startup wants to reprogram them.

Hoofprint Biome is using enzymes to rewire the cow’s microbiome from the inside out, cutting methane production and improving feed efficiency along the way. The company just raised a $15 million Series A round from investors including Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, and they’re just getting started.

Today on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Tim De Chant sat down with Kathryn Polkoff, co-founder and CEO of Hoofprint Biome, to talk through it all.

Listen to the full episode to hear about:<...

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...

AI investments hit $110 billion in 2024, and the funding landscape in 2025 is more competitive than ever. For early-stage startups, that means more money in the market but also more pressure to stand out.

At TechCrunch Sessions: AI, Rebecca Bellan sat down with three experienced investors: Jill Chase, Partner at CapitalG; Kanu Gulati, Partner at Khosla Ventures; and Sara Ittelson, Partner at Accel. They broke down what they are really looking for when evaluating AI startups from seed through Series C. Their message to founders? Forget the perfect pitch. Focus on building trust, surviving the hype cycle, and being...

Meta just made a $14.3 billion bet on data-labeling company Scale AI, but it’s not a traditional takeover: Meta’s taking a 49% stake in the company and adding Scale’s co-founder Alexandr Wang to its team.

Today on Equity, we break down what this means for Meta’s AI ambitions and revisit Wang’s early AI predictions.

Listen to the full episode to hear more highlights from the week, including:

How Chime’s IPO priced above expectations at $27 per share and jumped in early trading, and Anthony’s not-so-hot takes on what this signals for th...

Generative AI is reshaping the way people work, from full-time employees to freelancers. As coding copilots, design assistants, and AI-powered writing tools become more capable and accessible, creative and technical roles are starting to shift – if not become eliminated entirely. The pressure to adapt is growing across the board. 

Micha Kaufman, CEO of Fiverr, isn’t sugarcoating it. In a recent open letter to staff, he warned that AI is coming for everyone’s jobs, and the only way to stay relevant is to embrace AI tools and automation. Get better, get faster, or get left behind. 

Ka...

Instead 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...

Today on Equity, Rebecca Bellan sits down with Crowdstrike co-founder and former CTO, Dmitri Alperovitch, to talk about the evolving cybersecurity landscape, the role of startups, and why he says we’re living in a World on the Brink.

Listen to the full episode to hear about:

What early-stage secure-by-design startup founders are missing when it comes to maintaining security while building quickly and crisis management. 

How AI export controls and global rivalries are reshaping innovation.

What investors are really looking for when backing cybersecurity startups today.

Equity will be...

Elon 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: Duration: 00:30:22

Today on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan caught up with  Daniel Weiner, director of the Brennan Center’s Elections and Government Program, to break down what this means for startups, innovation, and democracy.

Listen to the full episode to hear more about:

How SpaceX, Palantir, and Anduril leveraged insider networks to win major defense deals.

Changing ethics safeguards, and why that matters for founders entering government spaces.

What this all means for fair competition and startups trying to break in.

Equity will be back Friday with our weekly news...

OpenAI 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...

Today 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...

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...

Despite courtroom chaos, Rippling is still going full steam ahead. The HR tech startup at the center of an increasingly dramatic legal battle with rival Deel just raised a fresh $450 million in funding at a $16.8 billion valuation, and launched a new “Startup Stack” to woo early-stage companies—winning over Y Combinator as both an investor and a client.

The funding lands amid the company’s high-profile legal fight with Deel, which Rippling accuses of movie-worthy corporate espionage, complete with secret crypto payments and decoy Slack channels. Deel has denied the claims and fired back with its own lawsuit...

At 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...

Today, we're bringing you an episode of our sister podcast, StrictlyVC Download.

StrictlyVC's Alex Gove caught up with Eric Slesinger from 201 Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on seed-stage defense tech startups in Europe. They discuss Eric's journey from CIA to investor and how he recognized the untapped potential in European defense tech while others were dismissive, and how he's working to overcome the cultural taboo that once made defense investments "bad manners" in European VC circles.

Equity will be back on Friday with our weekly news roundup, so stay tuned!

Equity is...

What 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...

Retail investors are increasingly shaping the secondary market. In Q4 2024, platforms like EquityZen reported that 86% of total transaction volume came from retail participants—an eye-catching shift as tools like Forge and EquityZen promise broader access to private shares.

But does more access mean more opportunity, or more risk? Today on Equity, Rebecca Bellan is joined by Jared Carmel of Manhattan Venture Partners to dig into what he calls a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” in secondaries, and why he sees this market as a “pressure relief valve” that could keep startups private well past their startup years.

Listen to the ful...

Today on Equity, we're digging into the week’s headlines, from browsers and search to AI and social, and why Google and Meta's antitrust cases have us wondering if they’re really breaking up monopolies or just passing the baton to the next dominant player. 

Listen to the full episode to hear about:

Trump’s tariffs have upended global trade and created an environment of uncertainty. But this situation wasn’t created in a vacuum. The rules of business have been shifting for years as technology moves quicker than regulation, geopolitics descend into turmoil, and the law erodes and becomes weaponized. 

Businesses might be asking themselves, how are they meant to keep their heads above water? And what can they do to fight back?  

Hence AI co-founder Sean West has some answers. With a team spread across the U.K., Rwanda, the U.S., a...

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...

After nearly a decade at Index Ventures, where he backed standout fintech companies like Plaid, Persona, Lithic, and Pilot, Mark Goldberg left to launch Chemistry, an early-stage venture firm.

Founded alongside Kristina Shen and Ethan Kurzweil, the $350 million fund is part of a growing trend in venture capital: seasoned investors breaking out from large platforms to build more focused, boutique outfits.

Today on Equity, Mary Ann Azevedo caught up with Goldberg about what led him to make the move, what Chemistry is all about, and how the venture landscape has evolved over the past few...

Meta 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...

Kalshi 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...

Rippling’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...

Six years ago, while researching for a college entrepreneurship competition, Valentina Agudelo identified a troubling gap in breast cancer survival rates between Latin America and the developed world, with women in her native Colombia and the rest of the continent dying at higher rates due to late detection. 

Today, Agudelo is the co-founder and CEO of Salva Health, and recently took home the top prize at TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield. On the latest episode of Equity, she joins Rebecca Bellan to discuss how her company is using the Julieta device to revolutionize early breast cancer detection. But bef...

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According to Bradley Tusk, co-founder and managing partner of Tusk Venture Partners, venture capital has been “effectively dead for the last four years." A self-proclaimed “Fixer,” Tusk recently made the decision not to raise a fourth fund. Instead, he decided to go back to his roots and launch an equity-for-services firm aimed at helping early stage startups navigate tech policy and regulation.

Today on Equity, Rebecca Bellan sat down with Tusk to explore his pivot from traditional VC to equity-for-services, when it’s worth the risk to ask for forgiveness rather than permission, and why he’s...

It 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...

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This 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...

Today on Equity, we’re taking you to Austin, Texas, for South by Southwest, where Rebecca Bellan caught up with Dara Treseder, Chief Marketing Officer at Autodesk, and Mayor Matt Mahan of San Jose, to discuss how technology is transforming urban spaces and building the cities of the future.

The panel dug into how cities today are using AI to improve traffic and safety, why digital twins can help make cities more resilient to climate disasters, and how cities can integrate data centers into the fabric of their urban landscapes, among other topics. It’s a timely disc...

California’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...

Today on Equity, Julie Bort sits down with Ryan Hinkle a Managing Director at Insight Partners, the giant New York-based venture capital firm that invests in tech worldwide. It has $90 billion in assets under management and just raised a new $12.5 billion fund.

The pair unpack the evolving landscape of startup ecosystems. They talk about the post-pandemic shift that saw many founders moving to cities like New York or Miami only for the rise of OpenAI and Cerebral Valley and the accompanying AI boom to reignite San Francisco and Silicon Valley in general. 

While some founders s...

Today, 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:

Today on Equity, Mary Ann Azevedo sits down with Eylul Kayin, a partner at Gradient Ventures, to dive into the evolving AI startup landscape. The pair dig into what makes a successful AI startup, the importance of quality product offerings, and the fast-moving nature of AI innovation. 

Listen to the full episode to hear more about:

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...

Last week, the team at early-stage VC firm Slow Ventures launched its new $60 million fund entirely focused on investing in content creators.Today on Equity, Rebecca Bellan sits down with Lightcap to dive into YouTube remains the dominant platform for serious creators,how niche community trust translates into scalable businesses, and what this new fund means for the creator economy.

Listen to the full episode to hear more about:

Tensions 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...

“The fintech market is hot again,” said Sheel Mohnot, fintech investor and founder of Better Tomorrow Ventures (BTV). “And we are going to see some more exits in the near future.” 

According to recent reports, fintech funding is on the rise, with global investment hitting $60 billion in the first half of the year alone, marking a significant rebound from the previous year’s dip. 

Mohnot – whose X account you’ve likely come across if you follow fintech – has invested in over 100 deals throughout the years, primarily in fintech, and co-founded the accelerator program The Mint. On today’s episode...

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...

Today, 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:

DeepSeek, 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...

You might have noticed in your time online that a lot of the services and the websites that you’re using are kind of getting…worse. The good news, though, is that this means that there are different sectors that are ripe for disruption. 

On today’s episode of Equity, Rebecca's joined by Ed Zitron —CEO of EZPR, host of the Better Offline podcast, and author of Why Everything Stopped Working—to dig into why this shift is happening and what it means for startups.

Listen to the full episode to hear the pair discuss:

Today, on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Margaux MacColl and Anthony Ha are digging into the latest tech and startup news from inauguration week in the U.S., including the new administration’s approach to startups and the potential transparency challenges that come with it. 

Listen to the full episode to hear about:

Today on Equity, Julie Bort sits down with Crunchbase News’ Senior Data Editor, Gené Teare, to dive deeper into the year’s slight growth in investment, which reached $314 billion, up from $304 billion in 2023. The pair explores how AI became a dominant force in the landscape. As Teare puts it, “Tech rides on bubbles. What bubbles tell you is that if everyone's putting dollars into a certain sector, it means there are very big outcomes coming.”

Listen to the full episode to hear more about:

The clock is set to run out on TikTok over the weekend, following the Supreme Court’s ruling to uphold the ban. So, what’s next for the video-sharing app’s 170 million U.S. users?

On today’s episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Margaux MacColl and Anthony Ha dive into the week’s biggest stories, including where all the ‘TikTok refugees’ are heading. Many are flocking to Chinese apps like RedNote and Lemon8, with some even turning to Duolingo to brush up on their Mandarin as they search for new digital homes.

Listen to the...

Last week, Meta announced changes to its content moderation policy, including the removal of third-party fact-checking across its apps in favor of a crowdsourced community notes feature, similar to X.

Today on Equity, Rebecca Bellan caught up with Eugen Rochko, CEO of Mastodon, to explore what these changes mean for users and how decentralized social media platforms like Mastodon could offer a viable alternative to mainstream giants like Meta.

Listen to the full episode to hear more about:

As 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:

Today on Equity, we're taking you on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt for Kirsten Korosec's conversation with Zoox co-founder and CEO Jesse Levinson. The pair discuss building custom robotaxis, how Zoox's approach compares to that of Tesla, and the 'current and future landscape' of AI on wheels. It's also worth noting that Amazon-owned Zoox recently scooped up some of Tesla’s top talent, bringing on Zheng Gao late last month to lead hardware engineering.

Equity will be back on Friday with a full CES recap, so don't miss it!

Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Sp...

Instead of our usual Friday news rundown, we’re bringing you a conversation about what Yahoo Finance dubbed the “comeback stock of the year” - Robinhood. TechCrunch Editor in Chief and General Manager Connie Loizos chatted with Robinhood’s CEO and co-founder, Vlad Tenev, about the company’s evolution.

Listen to the full episode to hear more about:

Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship p...