Equity

This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single person, think about their work and unpack the rest. Mary Ann is taking over today's interview with David Vélez, the co-founder and CEO of Nubank, the $35 billion Sao-Paulo, Brazil-based digital bank that offers credit cards, checking accounts and life insurance to consumers. Equity listeners know that digital banking has been on our minds for some time now, so naturally we were excited to have David on the show. Here's what we got into: How Nubank has achieved -- and maintained profitability -- in this challenging macroeconomic environment How not only the LatAm fintech market differs from that of the U.S., but how founders in the region operate their businesses differently from their U.S. counterparts The state of digital banks in general and how David sees banking evolving in the next few years from the lens of both a founder and former investor (he once led Sequoia Capital's Latin American investments). Mary Ann and Alex are back on Friday with more Equity, but as always, you can keep up with us on Twitter @EquityPod. For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7:00 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here's the rundown for the very last Equity Monday of Q2 2023: Crypto's mini-boom in the last week comes after a brutal few weeks of negative headlines; for the crypto-faithful, it must be a breath of fresh air. Startups: IRL was a digital fraud, Vanta is a unicorn to watch after quick ARR growth and a resulting valuation has grown into, and TreasurySpring is riding a changing macroeconomic climate to rapid fintech growth. As Amazon pledges more investment in India, we're seeing a lot of other big economic pieces move. Other American companies are pledging big dollars to the country as Japan looks to buy one of its domestic chip companies, and American investors are putting capital into their own domestic silicon players. Finally, Apptio is selling to IBM for $4.6 billion. Whew! That's a lot, but we had a good time and will see you back here on Wednesday! All the cool kids are filling out the Equity listener survey. We want to hear from you! For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mary Ann and Alex are back, and once again this week they tapped the TechCrunch roster for expert input. This week were lucky enough to have Kirsten Korosec back on the podcast. She's TechCrunch's mobility lead, hosts a podcast of her own, and is one of our favorite humans. Here's the rundown: Deals of the Week: Mary Ann wanted to talk about Robinhood buying X1, a deal that seemed inexpensive but we lack enough numbers for full confidence; Alex wanted to riff on Dropbox's new AI fund, even if it does feel a little small; and Kirsten had notes for the team on Cruise's latest app rollout. Even if Mary Ann and Alex cannot find a way to agree on self-driving cars, we all thought that the Cruise bus is cute. Twitch and Reddit try to balance corporate requirements with community power: Building off our recent show digging into the creator economy, the crew tackled the latest from Twitch (a new creator-corporate revenue split of sorts) and Reddit (where the battle between the company and its power-users continues to blaze). It's feeling more hot war than cold war lately on the Internet, with platforms struggling to find a way to keep revenue growth coming while not estranging the folks who make their services tick. The power of Not Boozing: How big is the market for non-alcoholic drinks? Smaller than the market for vodka, certainly, but we're curious. Also there's a new app in the market that is helping folks find non-booze bevies, which we dig. Before we let you go, don't forget to fill out the Equity listener survey. We want to hear from you! A big thanks to Kirsten for swinging by, and we'll chat with you Monday morning. For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Before we get started: all the cool kids are filling out the Equity listener survey. We want to hear from you! On today's episode, Alex had Eric Silver, Head of Creative at the podcast collective Multitude on the show to help us sort through: What the hell happened with Spotify's big podcast push, and its resulting layoffs. Why tech platforms have not yet found a way to make creative work lucrative enough to engender a new 'creator middle class.' The state of the ad market, and its impacts on creative work more generally. Towards the end we had a moment to comment on AI, but we kept that somewhat far from our central theme. Long-time Equity listeners will recall that we've covered the creator economy a few times on the show and the blog, including: Yeah, funding for creator-focused startups is drying up [blog] F*ck creator funds, we need a creator index fund [Equity] Not every creator economy startup is built for creators [blog] And if you need even more, this investor survey from 2021 on all things creator-economy is a great look-back in time! For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This time 'round we are here on a Tuesday due to an American holiday! Here's the rundown from Alex: Stocks are mixed the world around as central banks tinker with interest rates to try and tune their domestic economies. The crypto world remains muted. Alibaba's shakeup: The CEO of the Chinese tech conglomerate is leaving that role to run its cloud business, which is one of the pieces of the company that will be spun out. Intel managed to extract a handsome package from Germany in exchange for building a plant in the country. OpenAI is working to limit the impact of EU AI regulation on its products and services. No one wants to buy Tiger's startup stakes en masse, so it is reduced to selling loosies to anyone who wants them. Go-Ventures is now Argor Capital, and it has a new $240 million fund. And funding rounds from Yellow and ElevenLabs as Byju's cuts more staff. Don't forget, all the cool kids are taking our listener survey. Head here to make your voice heard! We are back bright and early tomorrow. Talk soon! For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All the cool kids are filling out the Equity listener survey. We want to hear from you! It was a hectic week, with little in the way of the traditional Summer Slowdown making itself known. So, here's what Alex and Mary Ann covered with some help from our dear friend Jacquie Melinek: WWDC in a nutshell: In case you missed it, Apple had a big event this week. On tap were the usual run of software updates, and improved computers in both laptop and desktop format. And, you know, that other thing. Affirm partners with Amazon (again): This is not Affirm's first tie-up with Amazon, but investors are pretty excited that the pair of companies are once again linking arms. As we continue to wait for mega-unicorn Klarna's IPO — more notes here — we are keeping our ears close the BNPL ground. Cava's IPO continues to delight Alex: What has an IPO coming up and has this little podcast in a tizzy? Yep, it's Cava, the fast-casual chain that, thanks to a dollop or two of venture capital money, we get to cover! All things SEC and Crypto: The SEC broke into its hammer closet so that it could go play whack-a-mole this week with crypto exchanges both foreign and domestic. Sequoia does to itself what regulators want to do to Google: What has three parts and is now competing with itself? Sequoia. Think of it like an inverse Google, if you will. How real estate will affect the climate crisis: It turns out that construction is not so good for the planet. And with a commercial real estate crisis brewing, can we add one to one and get five? Next week, Equity is on vacation! We're taking a breather before launching into another massive run of shows, but we'll be back before you know it. For episode transcripts and more, head toEquity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us onApple Podcasts,Overcast,Spotifyand all the casts. TechCrunch also has agreat show on crypto, ashow that interviews founders, one thatdetails how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, we had Carta CEO Henry Ward on to chat through the early-stage market with us. Alex had a grip of data and a sheaf of questions, so here's what we got into: The current state of the early-stage venture capital market: From Ward's perspective, the early-stage market is in better shape than many folks think. It's the later-stages of venture capital that are the most moribund. We also riffed on the quality of startups that are raising today, and how much pain is coming for young tech companies that can't quite attract more capital. Carta's new Seed and Series A product: Carta is offering a mostly-automated method of closing early-stage rounds; we wanted to better understand the economics of the effort, and what the unicorn hopes to achieve from the work. We closed with a look ahead, and a series of fun closing questions with Ward. That's just the high-level summary. We also discussed entrepreneurship more broadly, the importance of LLCs, and even how to construct a podcast interview. Don't forget: our listener survey is back! Take a moment to let us know what you want more of, what you want less of, and how we can make this the kind of podcast you want to come back to every week. Chat soon! For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here’s what Alex got into today: Stocks are mixed around the world this morning while crypto stays pretty flat. Earnings this week that we’re excited about include Gitlab, Couchbase, Yext, Smartsheet, and Hashicorp. (We’re also keeping an eye on the Atomic Wallet hack.) Reddit’s proposed API changes (charges, more like) are having a pretty big impact on the service’s userbase; there are calls for a blackout of certain forums in response to the proposed updates. Reddit, on the other hand, is a business and needs to make money. Sticking to social media, news broke this morning that Twitter’s revenues are down sharply compared to year-ago totals, at least when we consider its American advertising incomes. Twitter does more than just ads in North America, but given that it’s likely a pretty big chunk of its total top line, it’s not good news. Canva’s valuation was slashed by a mutual fund (something that we have seen a lot lately), the latest in a string of similar headlines for other unicorns. Closing, WWDC is today. Get. Hype. Don't forget: our listener survey is back! If you can, please take a moment to let us know what you want more of, what you want less of, and how we can make this the kind of podcast you want to come back to every week. Equity will be back on Thursday this week, but in the meantime, you can catch us on Twitter @EquityPod. For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7:00 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mary Ann and Alex were a busy pair this week, so much so that they tagged in Dominic-Madori Davis from the TechCrunch+ crew to help out. Before we kick things off, our listener survey is back! If you can, please take a moment to let us know what you want more of, what you want less of, and how we can make this the kind of podcast you want to come back to every week. Now, here's what we got into: Fraud is bad: Elizabeth Holmes is in jail, and the SEC wrapped insider trading charges against a former Coinbase staffer. Our take? Breaking business law is bad and perhaps people should not do it. Controversial, we know. Deals of the Week: Alex is enamored with Web Roulette, while Mary Ann wanted to talk about Stripe's deal to buy Okay. Klarna's Q1 2023 results led Alex to share some enthusiasm that the fintech market could be rebounding, a topic that he's been going on about for some time. QED's plans to invest its new funds carefully is a clear example of the new investing climate, Mary Ann argued. The show also touched on our latest check-in on the a16z early-stage strategy. And we closed, thanks to Dom, with a chat through the Atlanta startup scene in advance of our upcoming City Spotlight. Equity will be back on Monday, but in the meantime, you can catch us on Twitter @EquityPod. And for the early-stage founders out there, don’t forget to apply for the Startup Battlefield 200 cohort at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023! For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7:00 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, Mary Ann hopped on the mic with number one New York Times best selling author, producer, personal finance thought leader, and host of the Women & Money podcast, Suze Orman. We’re following up on Suze’s not-so-surprising-startup debut with SecureSave, what the company’s been up to and how Suze is thinking about protecting employees in today’s economy. Here’s what we got into: How little money many Americans have saved for emergencies and how SecureSave wants to change that How inflation may be making it harder for people to save when they have less money to do so We ended, as always, with a “lightning” round Q&A in which Suze revealed her secret weapon for success For the startup founders listening, today is your last chance to apply to the Startup Battlefield 200 at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023! Fill out those applications while you still can, and Mary Ann and Alex will be back Friday to close out your week with a special guest. For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7:00 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, crypto prices are static, unlike a particular valuation and Alex is still mad about SPACs. Here's the rundown: Stocks around the world are happy that America is once again going to avoid a default; congrats, United States. At the same time, the crypto market is a bit boring right now, due in large part to muted trading volumes as the crypto winter tests new low temperatures. No one knows what Byju's is worth, but Blackrock is marking its price in one consistent direction. Serve Robotics is having a good run as a startup, partnering up with its prior parent company. The WSJ has some great data on SPACs that drove us nuts. Whew. What a way to start the week! We are back tomorrow! For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mary Ann and Alex were a dynamic duo this week, and here's what they got into: The fascinating backers of Checkmate, and the future of online shopping: Mary Ann covered a very interesting Series A for Checkmate, a startup that not only has shown real legs on the competitive App Store, but also on social media platforms far and wide. Cava's IPO won't save the IPO market, but it could help all the same: Alex is so IPO-deprived that he's drawing connections between anything that files and the startup market. This time it's not even that much of a stretch! Daylight calls it quits: From the 'not a huge surprise' category comes the end of Daylight, a neobank aimed at the LGBTQ+ market that has been struggling for a while yet. This begged the question are themed neobanks going to make it? Layoffs, Layoffs, Layoffs: Soundcloud is cutting staff to get to profitability, which we can understand. Meta is cutting staff because it, well, wants to conserve capital for more share buybacks? Anthropic's massive funding round and who is going to win the AI war? When is $450 million not that much money? When you are building foundational AI models that are taking on OpenAI and others. Also in this section: Cold War metaphors. And with that, we're heading off into a holiday weekend here in the US, so Equity will be back next Tuesday. For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7:00 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, Alex sat down with GGV Capital's Jeff Richards, an investor who has perspective on the last venture boom and the resulting dénouement of that particular saga that we've been covering since the end of 2021. Richards has been an investor since 2008, so he's seen a business cycle or two, which convinced us that he'd be the perfect person to discuss the diverging fates of late-stage startups. Here's what we got into: The idea that all unicorns are in trouble is wrong; some late-stage startups got it right. What this means for some eventual IPOs, and for those that didn't, likely some liquidations as well (some examples here, but the list is longer than that post outlines). We also talked about the existence of unifying characteristics at late-stage startups that are doing well, and how to note early signals that the venture climate is about to molt. As always, Equity will be back on Friday with your weekly news round up, but until then, you can catch us on Twitter @EquityPod For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7:00 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, we are talking about Meta’s latest fines, what’s new in chips, and a few startup rounds that caught our eye! Stocks aren’t moving too much this morning, which could change if the American government voluntarily defaults over some bullshit. Crypto hasn’t moved too much lately, though we are keeping tabs on overall trading volume. Meta was hit with a record fine over how it handled EU user data. Data residency is a big deal and will likely crop up in future conversations concerning generative AI models and where they source their own data and from whom. China has banned some Micron products, irking the United States. The two economic powerhouses are working to distance themselves from one another in key technology areas. Elsewhere in chip-land, Applied Materials is investing in the United States and there are labor concerns regarding the sheer number of chips projects kicking off here at home. Patient21 raised a massive round for its software-and-services healthcare business, while Infinite Uptime raised more money for its “predictive maintenance solutions for machinery.” Whew! And that’s just the start! See you back here Wednesday for more!For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week Mary Ann, Becca, and Alex gathered to chew through the biggest news of the week. Here’s what the gang got into today: Vice goes bankrupt: Now is not a great time for media companies. The advertising market is in the toilet, layoffs are rampant, and the end of Vice is like a cherry atop a trash sundae. Mary Ann points out during the show that some operational difficulties were at play at the company. Here’s a real unicorn death for us to stare at. Deal Dive: AI. AI coaching. AI human relationship coaching? It’s a thing, and whether or not it is the future, we have questions. Freshly-Nestle: How often do you see a venture firm sue an acquirer? Not very often. We dig into the what and why of the Freshly suit. Why is Musk buying other companies? What do you do if you buy a company and fire most of its staff? You buy a tech jobs platform, it turns out. NewLimit and the limits of life: NewLimit is a company that Alex likes. Why? Because he doesn’t want to die before he can go to space. Mary Ann and Becca noted that the company’s setup is more than non-traditional. For NewLimit, the proof will be in the pudding. What’s ahead for venture debt? Becca’s work on the venture debt landscape has been critical reading since the SVB crisis unfolded earlier this year. Her latest venture survey helped us understand where founders will be hunting up capital in the back half of 2023 and beyond. Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, Alex spoke to two guests from the world of Microsoft for Startups - GM, Hans Yang, and Senior Director, Tom Davis. We're working to figure out how big tech corporations are playing in the startup sandbox, starting with the launch of Microsoft's Pegasus program. Here's what we got into: Why programs like Pegasus are particularly helpful for startups in a conservative VC market The mutually beneficial relationship between the large tech players and startups The close relationship between Microsoft and OpenAI As always, Equity will be back on Friday with your weekly news round up, but until then, you can catch us on Twitter @EquityPod For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7:00 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week we talked about media, startup rounds and some Big Money Moves: Stocks are mostly up to start the week while crypto remains within the bounds of its recent trading range. Again. Vice has filed for bankruptcy, again highlighting how hard the media game can be. The company's eventual selling price looks like it will be a fraction's fraction of its once great worth. Foxconn is investing more in India, underscoring how critical it is for major electronics supply chain companies to diversify out of China — and the immense costs involved. Brex took a shot at buying part of SVB's portfolio, TechCrunch reports. Startup rounds: Smart raised $95 million at a slight discount to its 2021-era valuation and M-KOPA secured a pile of equity and debt fundraising. And we closed with the interesting sale of Forbes. Equity will be back on Wednesday and Friday! We'll see you then! For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week Mary Ann, Natasha and Alex celebrated one final episode as a three, and here's what we got into: Deals of the Week: Alex wanted to talk about the slowing of growth amongst tech companies, Natasha had notes on a brace of new Mayfield funds, while Mary Ann brought Wellthy to the table. Next we discussed pessimism in fintech, if it is near its peak, and how companies like Petal are still forging ahead regardless of market chop. From there we dug into AI, how it will impact certain creative work, and what it could mean for tech workers who traditionally have not organized. And we closed with a very Natasha topic: Accelerators. Natasha led us out of the show with a final Equity sign-off as she announced her time with the podcast, and TechCrunch, is coming to a close. We are going to miss her awfully, but are also her biggest fans and cheering her on! Equity will be back before you know it, but in the meantime, you can catch us on Twitter @EquityPod. And for the early-stage founders out there, don’t forget to apply for the Startup Battlefield 200 cohort at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023! For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7:00 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, Natasha spoke to Kristen Anderson, the co-founder and CEO of Catch, an app to provide payroll benefits for people who are self employed, that recently announced it would be shutting down. We're talking about vulnerability, shut downs, building in public and on ramps and off ramps that come with the wild choice to be an entrepreneur. Here's what we got into: Venture capital's role in how a founder builds Making the difficult decision to shut down, and why Catch chose to do so publicly We end with Anderson's return to building, in fintech, despite what her Twitter followers wish. Seems like being close to peak pessimism in fintech is a good thing for forever builders. As always, Equity will be back on Friday with your weekly news round up - and a big announcement - so don't miss it! Until then, you can catch us on Twitter @EquityPod For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7:00 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotifyand all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alex is back with the latest in tech news from the weekend and what’s making headlines early in the week. Today, we are talking about meme coins, unicorns and the latest from India! The global stock market started the week on pretty good footing. Also, the crypto world is suffering modest indigestion thanks to a new meme coin. On the regulatory front, it appears Coinbase is going to stick with the U.S. Elsewhere in Industry Land, Qualcomm is going shopping, Alibaba's logistics IPO is targeting the Hong Kong market, and the UK is digesting the fact that a local legend is going to list in the United States. From there, it was time to check in on some news, bad and good, from India. We are going to see some interesting earnings results this week, so stay tuned! Equity will be back Wednesday morning! For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week Mary Ann, Natasha and Alex got right into it with: An update on a startup banking partner collapse that wasn't the First, and probably won't be the Last A section dedicated to sunsetting Poparazzi and a Databricks acquisition (points to whoever can guess how we transitioned from one deal to the next) Next up, we spoke about Finix's latest announcement to go head to head with Stripe, before talking more about the rise of down rounds We ended with BlueSky. Although some of us feel grey about it. And regardless, this piece by Morgan Sung will have you thinking smartly about the new Twitter competitor started by the ol' Twitter boss. We'll be back before you know it, but in the meantime, you can catch us on Twitter @EquityPod. And for the early stage founders out there, don't forget to apply for the Startup Battlefield 200 cohort at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023! For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7:00 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, Natasha Mascarenhas interviewed Sam Chaudhary, the founder of ClassDojo, and Chris Farmer, the founder and CEO of SignalFire, a venture firm that recently announced a $900 million fund to back tech startups. This interview is structured a bit differently as it was actually recorded as a TechCrunch Live session, our weekly show that focuses on helping people start better venture backed businesses. We'll hear from the trio about: What an outsider advantage looks like in startups, per a top investor Why ClassDojo doesn’t see itself as an edtech company How Sam landed early traction with a difficult-to-capture consumer How both Sam and Chris are thinking through the AI question brewing in every office If you want to check out the full video of today's conversation, including a round of Pitch Practice hosted by Matt Burns, head to our YouTube channel and stay tuned for more TechCrunch Live! As always, the full Equity crew will be back on Friday, but you can keep up with us in the meantime @EquityPod. For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7:00 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotifyand all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alex is back on the mic for your Monday rundown and digging into OpenAI, earnings, First Republic Bank, and ARM. Oh, and startups as well! It's another big earnings week, and we're excited to see how Uber, Coinbase, Apple and Hubspot have performed! First Republic Bank is no more. It wasn't shocking to see JPMorgan swooping it up, but we are once again seeing a small bank shutting shop and a big bank getting bigger. Not good! OpenAI is now even richer thanks to a $300 million investment from venture capitalists. It's amazing that the company sold just 1.1% of its equity for nine figures. And Alison raised capital just as AMD filed privately to go public. It's a busy start to the week! Hugs, and we'll be back Wednesday and Friday. For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week Mary Ann, Natasha and Alex were especially chattery as they waded through a busy week in tech and startups. We're talking AI. We're talking layoffs. And we're talking coffee. Here's what we got into: Three deals of the week from copyright requests around "-GPT" to Ansa, a wallet ready to make you even more loyal to your local cafes to First Republic Bank's tanking share price and all the thoughts that feel all too reminiscent of our reporting just six weeks ago. Fintech venture layoffs, and the state of startup hiring more generally. Based off of Mary Ann's scoop, we got into the nitty-gritty of just how much staff a venture firm needs, and why. Earnings! Alex has spent more time than is healthy reading through recent financial disclosures from tech companies big and small. The result? Decent news for startups. We end with notes on coffee. How does coffee fit into Equity? Well, when it's venture backed and growing, we don't care if it powered by beans or AI. We'll be back in your ears again on Monday to catch up on the weekend's headlines. If you miss us in the meantime, follow us @EquityPod and check out Alex and Natasha's cameos on TechCrunch Live! For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7:00 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotifyand all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, Natasha interviewed Ankur Nagpal, the entrepreneur behind Teachable, Ocho, and Vibe Capital - Ankur's $70 million venture fund, raised last year from over 200 investors. Today, we're talking about: The future of Solo GPs and Ankur's choice to shrink Vibe Capital's fund size How Ankur built, sold, pivoted and launched in public The upside of building in public vs building in private The importance of brand and succession Of course, we ended with a lightning round of questions - including the meaning behind Ankur's tattoo. As always, Alex, Natasha and Mary Ann will be back for our weekly news roundup on Friday, but you can follow us on Twitter @EquityPod for live updates and more. For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7:00 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotifyand all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today Alex Wilhelm is talking about Twitter Blue, Lyft, a few startup rounds, and what could kick off the next crypto supercycle. Several major tech companies are reporting earnings this week, strap in for some big news and perhaps even bigger share price movements. The Twitter Blue saga took new turns this weekend, with Musk's personal social network staying in the news once again. If the overall result of said news for the company is good or not remains to be seen. Alex had a few thoughts on what has happened to a number of tech-enabled companies that went public, and have since seen their value evaporate. More here. And then it was time to check in on Super.com's big new round, and the latest from Span! Equity is back Wednesday and Friday! Chat soon! For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotifyand all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week we recorded at Early Stage, TechCrunch's event for founders who are building startups from the ground up. Sadly, our dear friend Natasha Mascarenhas took ill, and we had to lean on Alex for the episode. Happily, though, Darrell from the TechCrunch team was sitting next to us on the show floor so we tagged him in for some rocket knowledge. Anyhoo, here's the run of show! All things Early Stage: Notes from the show floor, what we can infer about attendance and a vibe check. Elon's new, larger rocket went up (very good) and then went "boom" (not as good). Happily for the space race, the overall result of the launch was good. Rockets have a tendency to go boom when they are new, and it's a bit of the, well, testing process to have them do so. Sure, a non-boom result would have been better, but SpaceX wasn't planning on trying to reuse the parts anyway. Tesla's earnings came out and investors are not that pleased. While there was some good stuff in the numerical set, price cuts at the company and moderating cash flow indicate that profitability gains could be harder to reach in the future. And layoffs. Meta is cutting staff. Insider is cutting staff. BuzzFeed is cutting staff. It's a mess out there. We are back at full strength next week — and no longer on the road — so expect regular service to resume. Hugs! For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7:00 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotifyand all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alex invited Janelle Teng from Bessemer Venture Partners on the program to riff with us on the state of the cloud. That's also the title of Bessemer's latest data dump concerning cloud stocks, startups, AI, and more. Teng, a co-author on the report, walked through some of key bits with us to better explain her firm's perspective, and to answer our critical commentary regarding Figma and why startups should always kill Goliath, instead of joining him for a round of grapes and lounging. You can find the report that we chatted about here, and our early notes thereof here. Finally, a rundown of topics: Is the valuation massacre that startups have survived since late 2021 finally over? Why is investor preference swinging back towards growth from profitability? What is the state of runway at late-stage startups? Is the M&A pause nearly over? And, naturally, AI and SaaS and where VCs see the pair heading! See you at Early Stage tomorrow! For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us onApple Podcasts,Overcast, Spotifyand all the casts. TechCrunch also has agreat show on crypto, ashow that interviews founders, one thatdetails how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today we are talking about space, birds and startups! Here’s what Alex got into: Earnings season is coming back! That means Netflix and Tesla this week, and a huge number of big tech companies next week. Data cometh. We were very excited about the launch of SpaceX's massive rocket. It got scrubbed after we recorded, but you can still enjoy our hype about the potential event. We'll have more on the matter when the rocket actually does go up. Rovio is selling to Sega. Yeah, we had to digest that one as well. The sale price shows just how tough it is to be a games company. There's a lot of regulation going on out there in the world. And we wrapped with notes on Loopin and Fleet! See you at Early Stage later this week! For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotifyand all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week Mary Ann, Natasha and Alex enjoyed the warming climate and the fact that there are some positive vibes in the venture market as well. Hell, we even had a nine-figure round to chew on! Here's the show rundown: Alex wanted to discuss the latest FTX docs and the recent X.com (formally known as Twitter) news. Natasha brought a new edtech venture fund to the table. Mary Ann wanted to talk about Clear Street's impressive fundraise. From there, we discussed that while the pace at which unicorns are being funded is in freefall, there are still some mega-IPOs coming from select late-stage startups. We will relish the return of S-1 season when it comes. From there it was time to chat AI. Natasha recently went to an AI event in San Francisco, helping us grok the on-the-ground dynamics at play. That, when crossed with different regulatory postures around the world made for a pretty darn interesting segment. And we closed with the opportunity that opportunity funds may afford venture firms. While Lux is still pursing a multi-stage approach, other firms are taking a more focused tack. Lastly, there are just a couple days left to place your Webby Awards votes for our friends at Found and Chain Reaction. We are back Monday morning, see you all at Early Stage! For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7:00 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotifyand all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, Natasha spoke with a founder, a psychiatrist and a venture capitalist about founder mental health, a topic that has been a conversation in Silicon Valley for as long as we can remember. The theme has gained renewed momentum due to the startup and venture downturn in general, and exacerbated by a bank failure that still has some folks reeling. It's time for a check-in. Here's who we spoke with for today's show: Pioneer Mind's Naveed Lalani gave us the founder perspective on how to "hustle responsibly" with The Founder Mental Health Pledge, a call to action for investors to support founders in looking at their mental health as a business priority Psychiatrist Dr. Saumya Dave reminded us of the differences between - but also overlap of - therapy, executive coaching and group sessions Graham & Walker's Leslie Feinzaig helped us close out the show with the VC perspective and her own tools for wellness This is, of course, a conversation we want to continue. If you have a story you want to share, or if there's an angle that you think we missed when it comes to talking about mental health in the entrepreneurial world, you can email us at [email protected]. As always, Alex, Natasha and Mary Ann will be back for our weekly news roundup on Friday, but follow us on Twitter @EquityPod for live updates and more! For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7:00 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotifyand all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, we are talking about crypto, Uber, and how to be petty at scale. Here's what Alex got into: Around the world of capital, we're most confused at certain bits of price stability in the cryptocurrency markets. It feels a bit faux, if that makes sense. Where prices are less steady is the world of YC startups, where, once again, there's complaints amongst venture investors about the valuations that some of the earliest-stage tech companies out there are commanding. Perhaps a greater discount given the state of the world was anticipated. Uber is selling part of Careem in a deal worth $400 million. Uber wants to do things on wheels. A super app company, at least in the Middle East, it is not. But it is about to have a huge new bankroll. The Musk v. Substack battle took up much weekend oxygen, showing that it is often hard to retain one's free speech bonafides when you just don't want to anymore. All that and there are new FTX docs! Huzzah! Let's have a good week, y'all. For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotifyand all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This was Y Combinator week in a sense, with the well-known accelerator showing off hundreds of startups over a two-day period. We had some thoughts about that. But! There was a lot more for Mary Ann, Natasha and Alex to dig into, so we have a little something for everyone today. Here's the show notes, enjoy: First, support our sibling podcasts Found and Chain Reaction in the Webbys! They deserve it, and we're voting for them too. For our Deals of the Week, we had: Monument and Tempest shared patients’ private data with advertisers, Acorns buys GoHenry, and Alex has notes on how the Q1 venture capital market is shaping up. Looking for all the Y Combinator notes your heart could desire? You can find our favorites from days one and two at those links, and read this Natasha piece on why the Bay is Back. We also took the time to discuss the term 'demo day' for an event where there are no, you know, demos. Latin America was back on the show thanks to Mary Ann, giving us a good reminder that we have not spent enough time lately looking at the region. We closed with Frank, a frank chat that frankly had us shaking our heads. Fraud is bad, and nearly doubly so when it comes to startups, where trust plays such a critical role. Equity will return to your ears Monday morning, cheers until then! For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7:00 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alex filled in for Natasha as host this week, and to celebrate the end of Q1 2023 and the start of another earnings cycle, we invited PitchBook Senior Analyst Kyle Stanford onto the show. Stanford and his company are key providers of data concerning the domestic and global venture capital markets making him a perfect guest to help kickstart our look at recent venture results, and trends. We had a lot to talk about: Where early-2023 venture aggregates are trending, including a chat about different stages of startup size and how investors are approaching those groups. Sectors that are hot and sectors that are, well, not. When we might get an exit market that actually exists, again. And why Stanford popped our fading optimism that we could get more IPOs later this year. And we had a good time. We hope that this episode helps you form an informed posture towards fundraising for, and operating your company. For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7:00 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotifyand all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alex is back with the first episode of our Q2 run. Welcome to the new tranch of 2023! On the show today we riffed through the stock market and crypto sector. The gist? Shares are mixed here in the United States while major crypto tokens are not doing too much. In startup news, Paris is cracking down on e-scooters after a vote, Zamp Finance raised nearly $22 million for a neat way to keep startup cash safe and yield-friendly, and Fourthline reminded us that applied AI is a sentence that we are going to say again and again this year. Tesla's Q1 delivery and production numbers are out, and while the beat certain expectations the results come after price cuts. It will be curious to see what the new figures translate to in financial terms when we get the company's financial results. And then this a16z-Saudi Arabia thing that was a bit weird to chat about, but we took a stab at regardless. The show is back Wednesday and Friday, we'll see you then! For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

AI? Crypto? Equity crowdfunding and former startup founders trying to bribe China? We had it all this week, friends, so please strap in and get ready for another catchup with your besties Mary Ann, Natasha and Alex. Here's the show rundown in case you want to play along as you listen: Deals of the Week: How Seed Checks could disrupt early-stage fundraising, notes on StellarFi's latest capital raise, and the end of the Lyft founders' operational saga. All about Substack and its equity crowdfunding round, an event that we have lots of good things to say about, and one complaint. Then there was crypto. Let's see: We WTF'd about the latest from FTX's SBF, CZ is in trouble, and more. And we closed with notes on an open letter asking for AI development work to pause — ha -— and had some fun with ChatGPT! It was a hell of a week. We do it again starting Monday! For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7:00 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, Natasha interviewed a Jack of all trades in the AI world with a focus on governance: Navrina Singh. Navrina is the founder and CEO of CredoAI, a governance platform helping organizations monitor, measure and manage AI-introduced risks. We're talking about: Navrina's wedge into the world of AI, and when governance went from a lonely conversation to a global focus. Her experience with Microsoft, observing how the EU AI Act's legislation is coming together, and her work as a member of the U.S. Department of Commerce National Artificial Intelligence Advisory Committee (NAIAC) - which advises President Biden and the National AI Initiative Office Regulation, responsible AI and getting over "AI hypocrisy" Casting fear aside as a motivator for change Navrina's thoughts on recent news in AI, including GPT-4's launch and Microsoft's ethical AI team layoffs. As always, Alex, Natasha and Mary Ann will be back for our weekly news roundup on Friday, but you can follow us on Twitter @EquityPod for live updates and more. For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7:00 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotifyand all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alex had a lot of ground to cover from the weekend, so let's get started. Here's the rundown: The global stock market is mixed today, if leaning positive. Some concerns about global banks appear to be settling. In contrast, things are quiet on the crypto front. Salesforce is getting a reprieve from certain activist pressure after it took a cleaver to its staffing. The Silicon Valley Bank crisis is slowly coming to a close. TechCrunch has the latest on the sale of the former startup-friendly bank's commercial banking operations. In other tech news: France is cracking down on TikTok and other social apps, and some of Twitter's source code made its way onto GitHub. Finally, Turo is doing fine and could, ahem, drive us toward a reopening of the IPO market. Maybe more unicorns than we thought are going to be ok? How about we have a relaxed week? That would be nice. Something slow and calm to end the quarter? We deserve it, after all! For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotifyand all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What did Mary Ann and Natasha and Alex dive into? Here's the rundown: A quick update on TikTok: The CEO of the popular social media service went before Congress today. It was a pretty darn hostile meeting. Alex caught a chunk of it live, and also has a few thoughts on the matter. From there it was time for our 'deals of the week' section, which today included Duolingo's new music product, a new DAO fund, and the latest eToro investment. Then it was time to talk payroll. We started with the Rippling deal to raise $500 million during the SVB crisis, and then discussed the larger HR tech space, which is both bigger and valuable than we realized. We closed with AI. So, so much AI. Everyone and their least favored parental unit is building a large language model, and TechCrunch is busy covering in all their glory, or lack thereof. Whew! What a week. The show is back Monday morning. We'll see you there. For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7:00 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Natasha interviewed one of venture's most iconic duos: Mitch Kapor and Freada Kapor Klein of Kapor Capital. The investors recently published a book, "Closing the Equity Gap: Creating Wealth and Fostering Justice in Startup Investing," connecting scrappy stories of entrepreneurs to their investment thesis to the returns that other venture capitalists are clamoring to land. In today's episode, we're talking about: Their book and why the pair chose to do it now Mitch and Freada's broader thoughts on impact investing criteria for success and investor due diligence. For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7:00 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotifyand all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alex is here to do our Monday show, a kickoff for the week that covers startup news, tech news and a little bit of the money that powers both. After a hectic few weeks, are we done with banking news? No, but there's some good news in the offing, at least. Banking stocks are whipsawing this morning, in the wake of the UBS-Credit Suisse deal, and First Republic's continued woes. The crypto markets have had a good few weeks, leading to asset price appreciation that has reignited crypto-Twitter. News that TikTok is now more popular than ever is compounded by massive gains in the popularity of other Bytedance apps in the United States. The CEO of TikTok goes before Congress this week. Parker is taking on the corporate card market with a focus on ecommerce, and neat repayment periods, while PitchBook wants to predict which startups are going to exit. And, interest rate hikes could cool in the coming quarters, which could help tech companies recover some value. We're off! Another week stretches before us. Get your dancing shoes on, surely the surprises are still coming. For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday and Wednesday, and at 6 a.m. PT on Fridays, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotifyand all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, Alex and Natasha took the mic to talk about the slowest news cycle we've had since the beginning of the grocery delivery wars and WeWork. Just kidding. Here's what we got into: The M&A spree that includes updates from Qualtrics, Cvent, and Mint Mobile. We're happy to see some M&A, even if we'd rather see more startup deals and IPOs. GPT-4. GPT-4. GPT-4. What's in a name and more from the world of AI, including where we're seeing companies race to build the new tech into their products. SVB collapse update, including what we are looking for next. And what Y Combinator's round of layoffs tells us about the accelerator scaling back from late stage. (More on the trend here.) Busy few weeks, yeah? Don't forget to follow us on Twitter @EquityPod for live updates, and Alex will be back bright and early Monday morning with the latest. For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7:00 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, Natasha interviewed Series CEO Brexton Pham, who has been building a full-stack enterprise platform for institutions and enterprises since March 2021. Brexton was pushed out of stealth this week in the wake of Silicon Valley Bank's crash, which of course was the main topic of our conversation. What else did you expect? Here's what we got into: How much trust do our banks deserve today, and how much has reasonable trust fallen in recent weeks? How startups can (and should) start diversifying their banks What questions Series and its competitors are getting from investors today The long-term impacts beyond SVB Brexton also did a fantastic job of helping us zoom out and take a look at the past week from a refreshingly non-tech angle. Follow us on Twitter @EquityPod for live updates, and as always, the Equity crew will be back to unpack the week's headlines on Friday. For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7:00 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotifyand all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is Alex and we are here to do our Monday show, a kickoff for the week that covers startup news, tech news and a little bit of the money that powers both. Given how bonkers the last few days have been, this is not a normal show. Sure, we're talking money up top, but I also dragooned Natasha into running us through her amazing reporting from over the weekend on all things SVB. (Please excuse the Friends joke in the headline, we are very tired!) Here's what we got into: The stock market is suffering around the world, kinda. In the United States things when we recorded were somewhat positive. Since, shares have sank some. Put simply, the equity markets don't know how to trade the news. And it shows. Cryptos, in contrast, have had a great last day. From the news docket, Qualtrics' deal to sell for $12.5 billion is a go, and Rivian might get a little bit of breathing room from Amazon. And then Natasha and I dug into SVB. The first warning signs, the fear, the takeover, and the resolution. And then there's this. The story continues, expect a busy week and perhaps a few more to boot. Equity will be back shortly, but in the meantime check out our upcoming TechCrunch Live that just got a bit more spicy. For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday and Wednesday, and at 6 a.m. PT on Fridays, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotifyand all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week Mary Ann Azevedo, Natasha Mascarenhas and Alex Wilhelm gathered to riff through the week’s biggest startup and venture news: At the top of the show, we riffed about the situation at Silicon Valley Bank - which, of course, kicked off a little more after we wrapped our recording. So, more to come there. But we had other stories to get into: Deals of the Week: Roami (taking on Airbnb), Qualtrics (will it finally find its forever home?), the latest on the VC-AI affair (Upfront Summit recap). ADHD startups are a big thing now: From a browser to gamified help with to-dos, there's a host of startups in the market today looking to help folks get their work done, and life organized. We're big accessibility tech fans here at Equity, so this was right up our alley. How fintech investors are coping in the new venture climate: Mary Ann spoke to seven different fintech investors about the coming year, and where they are putting capital to work. The answer from many of them? B2B payments. It does look rough out there for fintech companies generally, but some VCs are still bullish. Bias, women, and how to brand in venture: We then discussed Natasha and Becca's excellently reported piece tracking how women VCs navigate bias through branding. That's it for this week! Thanks, as always, for listening in. Until next time, you can catch us on Twitter @EquityPod. For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7:00 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotifyand all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, Natasha interviewed Lizzie Matusov, the co-founder and CEO of Quotient, which wants to fix the "leaky pipeline problem" in tech onboarding that doesn't set up engineers for success. Yes, that's right, this week we're talking about the work needs, habits and aspirations of developers. Here's a few topics we get into: The stereotype of a coder, and where collectivism contrasts with those characteristics. How Quotient is using research, not just aspiration, to fuel its onboarding process The status quo of tech jobs and if we're seeing employers question some of their pre-conceived notions Developer resistance to change and if engineers really do want to work together more For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. As always, the full Equity crew will be back on Friday, but you can keep up with us in the meantime on Twitter @EquityPod. Equity drops every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 7:00 a.m. PT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alex is here to do our Monday show, a kickoff for the week that covers startup news, tech news, and a little bit of the money that powers both. Sound good? Here's what we have for you this morning: Money: Stocks are mixed around the world, and the crypto world is muted after some price swings last week. IPO news: ARM, the chip design concern, may go public in the United States this year, raising $8 billion in the process. Given the importance of chips these days -- you may have heard! -- the company's debut could be a very big deal indeed. Startup news: Abound raised a simply massive fintech round that had our head snapping around in surprise, Wunderkind put together a big Series C for its marketing tech, and several African fintech companies have had better weeks. Finally, Tesla: More price cuts. It will be fascinating to see what impact recent price reductions at Tesla have on the company's gross margins in the first quarter. More when we get those numbers. And that is our show! Hugs, and talk to you soon! For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday and Wednesday, and at 6 a.m. PT on Fridays, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotifyand all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together, and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for—the winner is announced! In this episode, we get to know the winner of the 2022 Startup Battlefield competition. We’ll hear what’s next for their company and get insight from TechCrunch staff, VCs, and audience members on why they were the right choice. Be sure to check out all of the other podcasts in the TechCrunch Podcast Network: Found, Equity, The TechCrunch Podcast, Chain Reaction and The TechCrunch Live Podcast. Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mary Ann, Becca, and Alex gathered to riff through the week's biggest startup and venture news. A big thank you to Becca for stepping in while Alex was on leave, and a note before we dive into topics that Natasha Mascarenhas will be back on the podcast next week! Now, here's what we got into: Deals of the Week: Divert's $100 million round to tackle food waste, Trust & Will's $15 million round, and what's happening in the land of NFT sales. Boston: TechCrunch held a Boston City Spotlight this week, so we took a look at a few pieces that we wrote about the lovely city to our North. Boston for example has a pretty good list of reasons why it's worth considering as a place to build a startup, and investors in the area are pretty hyped about its resilience. AI, crypto, and venture hype cycles: The crypto venture capital boom has collapsed; but is there a new AI bubble forming? Not in the way that we expected, it turns out. Amazon and Better.com: Of all the things that we didn't expect to see this year, the latest Amazon-Better tie-up is up high on our list. We had more than a few thoughts. And that is all we had time to chew on, friends. We will talk to you soon! For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7:00 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotifyand all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mary Ann is taking over while Natasha attends a summit in LA, and this week, she interviewed Mark Goldberg, partner and fintech lead at Index Ventures. Since 2015, Mark has spent his time investing in - and sitting on the boards of - financial services companies including Plaid, Persona, Lithic, Cocoon, and Pilot.The duo talked about: The party that was 2021 and the hangover that was 2022 Mark's Twitter prediction that raised some eyebrows on Twitter Why 2023 will be a survival of the fittest Alex, Mary Ann, and Becca are back Friday with more Equity, but as always, you can keep up with us in the meantime on Twitter @EquityPod. For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity's Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7:00 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotifyand all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices