Equity

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

Alex is back! After taking some time to learn how to care for tiny humans, he's returned and is more than fired up to get back to podcasting. That means early mornings to get the Monday show off the page, and into your ears, made worth it thanks to the startup economy proving incredibly interesting thus far in 2023. Now, what did we get into? The following: Stocks are largely up today, but only after a terrible week last week. So, a little plus/minus there. Cryptos are not too changed in the last day, but NFT trading results are rising again which is good news for folks into the tokens. News broke recently that the United States is also taking a hard look at the Adobe-Figma deal, more evidence that the mega-transaction could fail to consummate. This is notable as we have some historical notes regarding what happens when a huge deal falls apart before it can get done. Hello, Plaid. In more business-friendly news, the fintech market is not dead and two venture firms are taking pole position. Moving along to startup rounds, we took a look at ProsperOps and Flock. And to close, more layoffs at Twitter. More soon, as we are back Wednesday and Friday! 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 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

Inside Startup Battlefield is back in our feed with episode three. There are 180 companies solving crucial problems that didn’t make it to the Disrupt stage, but that doesn’t mean they’re making any less of an impact. TechCrunch writers Devin Coldewey and Harri Weber take us on a walk through the Expo Hall and let us listen into their conversations with a handful of the most interesting companies in the Battlefield 200. New episodes of Inside Startup Battlefield drop every Monday. 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

This week Natasha, Mary Ann, and Becca Szkutak were joined by the returning Alex Wilhelm, back from paternity leave. Yes, we had the whole gang back together today to dig through the week's pile of news -- and you can definitely tell how exciting it was by how fast we all talked through news (sorry to our dear producers!) Now, the news. Here's what we got into: Amazon has invested heavily in an Indian meat delivery company. No, not lab grown meat or plant-based meat. Just meat, delivered. Also in our Deals of the Week category was news form a former WeWork denizen that wants to help you plan a tiny home, and notes on how Klarna has wound up finding a huge market in the United States. Then it was time to talk money. Reddit could go public later this year though we have heard that story before, Lime is apparently standing on its own two wheels and could pursue an IPO at some point, while Coinbase is at once doing poorly and better than expected. Then we chatted how layoffs could lead to a founder boom, and the results of one venture group's effort to fund recently separated tech denizens. And to close, we took a look at Rebecca's piece on the importance of early founder and venture accountability. A big thanks to Rebecca for spending so much time with the Equity crew over the last few months while also hosting Found. We are back Monday with Alex! Chat 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, 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

Hello, and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single person, think about their work and unpack the rest. This week, Natasha interviewed Kaisa Snellman, an economic sociologist and an associate Professor of Organizational Behavior and Academic Director of the INSEAD Gender Initiative. We know, we know, it's a flex. We’re going to talk about: Kaisa’s recent Harvard Business Review piece with Isabelle Solal: For Female Founders, Fundraising Only from Female VCs Comes at a Cost. The duo's research asserts that women-led startups whose first round was raised exclusively from female VCs were 2x less likely to raise a second round regardless of initial funding round size, industry, geographic location, or prestige of the investor. Listen to the whole conversation before you jump to conclusions, but let's just say that this conversation really got into the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. The data is both revolutionary, and provocative. Here's what we got into: How people see female founders who just raise from female investors, and the pitching bias that continues to exist in the world Why the answer to imbalances is more complicated than getting female check-writers to the table And finally, we talk about how diversity quotas and funds may have unintended consequences that are worth thinking a bit more about. Equity will be back on Friday with a familiar voice you may be missing, but 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 10:00 a.m. PT every Monday and at 7:00 a.m. PT on Wednesdays and 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

Inside Startup Battlefield is back in our feed with episode two. In the second episode of Inside Startup Battlefield, we take a trip to TechCrunch Disrupt 2022 to hear pitches from the top five companies: Aaron Hall from Intropic Materials, Elizabeth Lawler from App Map, Chad Mason from Advanced Ionics, Sheeba Dawood from Minerva Lithium, Tim Lichti from Swap Robotics. We get to know the companies and the unique problems they’re solving through their pitches and the judges’ follow-up questions. Plus we hear from our host and Battlefield Editor, Neesha Tambe, about what working with each company was like. New episodes of Inside Startup Battlefield drop every Monday. 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

Natasha, Mary Ann and Becca got on the mic to talk startups, pet peeves and focaccia. What else did you expect? Here's what we got into: Descope landed a $53 million (!) seed round, a Phenomenal new venture fund and a neobank out to make credit more accessible to young people in Mexico. Then we pivoted to talk about buy now, pay later (BNPL), which included some chatter about Affirm's recent woes and which areas of BNPL that do seem to be growing despite questions around whether this is the end of the BNPL boom as we know it. Tech layoffs are as widespread as ever so we talked about what advice some VCs have for those laid off workers considering launching their own startups, and what we thought of that advice. Finally, we ended with a jump over the pond to talk about EU's tech scene. Mostly about the fact that it is far more put together than the U.S., and all that jazz. With that, we'll be skipping the upcoming week's Equity Monday due to the holiday and back with more on Wednesday, led by Becca! For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity's Simplecast website. Equity drops at 10:00 a.m. PT every Monday and at 7:00 a.m. PT on Wednesdays and Fridays, 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 Elana Berkowitz, founding partner at Springbank Collective and an early-stage investor working to close the gender gap. Following with our theme of covering the silent changemakers in tech, Berkowitz has done much more than invest: she’s an advisor at Eric Shmidt’s office, a social entrepreneur who was a former innovator in residence at CARE, former Obama Administration technology policy official across the Obama-Biden Transition Team. We spoke about: Building a venture firm that wants to disrupt the way the world thinks about care What people are missing when they talk about women's health The big opportunities out there to keep women in the workforce (and the low hanging fruit that we should all be thinking about) As always, the full Equity crew will be back on Friday, but you can keep up with us in the meantime on Twitter @EquityPod. For more on Plume, check out Found's interview with the company's co-founders Jerrica Kirkley and Matthew Wetschler! Equity drops at 10:00 a.m. PT every Monday and at 7:00 a.m. PT on Wednesdays and Fridays, 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

Check out the newest podcast from the TechCrunch Podcast Network: Inside Startup Battlefield, the four-part series that takes you behind TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield competition. In this episode, our host and Startup Battlefield Editor Neesha Tambe breaks down how the Battlefield companies are selected for the TechCrunch Disrupt stage. Then we take a deep dive into what makes a pitch perfect with pitch coach and TechCrunch writer Haje Jan Kamps and Startup Battlefield judge and VC Nisha Dua. You’ll also hear from: Julia Somerdin from Labby, Young-Jae Kim and Tara Peters from Anthill, Quddus Pativada from Digest AI, Blessing Adesiyan from Mother honestly, Hikari Senju from Omneky, Mitch Tolson from Ally robotics, Elizabeth Lawler from App map, Aaron Hall from Intropic materials. Sheeba Dawood from Minerva. New episodes of Inside Startup Battlefield drop every Monday. 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

This week, Natasha, Mary Ann, and Becca got on the mic about: Our deals of the week included a look at a large new fund focused on Africa, a startup raising big bucks to address the nursing shortage and Rebellyous raising in a crowded and struggling space toward its effort to 'rethink the nugget.' We took a few to chat through the latest around FTX, which is attempting to take back its political donations at the same time Robinhood is trying to buy back the 7.6% stake that an SBF entity acquired last year. We also marveled at how low Twitter Blue numbers really are. To throw it back for a second, Mary Ann walks us through the latest with Stripe AND all of our questions around its financial backing at the current moment. Becca reminds us that secondaries, dear friends, may be quiet but are livelier than ever. We end with notes on AI and inclusion, based on Dom's recent piece looking at the data behind the disparities. Reminder to use code EQUITY for 50% off annual TC+ memberships! Equity drops at 10:00 a.m. PT every Monday and at 7:00 a.m. PT on Wednesdays and Fridays, 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 Cleo’s former CEO and current chief business officer, SJ Sacchetti. We spoke about nearly every theme most founders and chief executives are too scared to talk about: ego, setting boundaries, stepping down and becoming a "statistic" and why a company needs to succeed without you. We talk about failure - or the fear of it, at least - and really, where things go wrong when we talk about how success is celebrated in tech. 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 at 10:00 a.m. PT every Monday and at 7:00 a.m. PT on Wednesdays and Fridays, 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 Natasha got into: Big tech: SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son will be skipping the Japanese conglomerates' earnings call, reports the Economic Times. We knew the flashy presentations were going away, but the silence may signal just how seriously SoftBank wants to shift its external perception. Speaking of perception, there's nothing quite like a delisting warning to get people talking about you. I talk about Getaround's less than $1 trend, and why it may be off the public markets if it doesn't get its act together in the next six months. Big idea: It's time to gamify benefits, and then think about wellness in more than just silo'd ways. At least that's how I imagine Minu's founding story to have played out - the startup is an HR tech meets edtech meets fintech meets health tech tool. Interesting stuff. Big innovation: The serial entrepreneur spree, in which notorious founders return to the early stage stomping grounds with fresher ideas, is a tried and true part of the tech world. Still, it surprises me to see just how many recent examples we have. Natasha talks about Instacart CEO Apoorva Mehta's new health tech company, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek's new health tech company, as well, and the return of co-founders from Instagram and Zenly making their way back into the social consumer space. We end with a nod at Natasha's latest Startups Weekly column, which looks at the data behind startup offices. Ok, that's all. Let's have a good time this week. And by that we mean, tell us all your secrets! Equity drops at 11:00 a.m. PT every Monday and at 7:00 a.m. PT on Wednesdays and 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 Natasha Mascarenhas and Becca Szkutak took to their mics to sing a duet about this week's startup news. Just kidding! But we did highlight some fun companies raising capital and talked through some VC themes that look likely to be relevant throughout 2023. Here's what we got into: For our deals of the week we talked about Artifact, the new startup from the previous co-founders of Instagram, Spill, a new Twitter alternative that raised pre-seed funding, and Disclo, a startup looking to make it easier for individuals to seek accommodations for their disabilities at work. Then we chatted about the recent flurry of new venture funds and what the timing of these announcements says about where the VC market is at right now. Last, we talked climate tech and how the recent wave of startups in the sector is a promising sign. Equity drops at 10:00 a.m. PT every Monday and at 7:00 a.m. PT on Wednesdays and Fridays, 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

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single person, think about their work and unpack the rest. This week, Mary Ann interviewed Hans Tung, prolific investor and managing partner of GGV, a venture firm with more than $9 billion in assets under management. The pair had a great conversation on: How Hans is advising portfolio companies to weather this downturn What he’s looking for in new investments How startups can stay relevant no matter the economic environment What he’d be if he weren’t a VC (hint: Mark Cuban follows a similar playbook) His new initiative around embedded fintech With two decades of experience in investing in companies such as Affirm and Airbnb, Hans has been through more than one cycle and his calm, steady approach to handling challenging macro environments comes through. We're excited to share this conversation with you, but please note: there were technical issues and the audio quality is not up to our usual standard. Thanks for your understanding, and we hope you enjoy the conversation anyway. As always, the full crew will be back on Friday, but keep up with Equity in the meantime @EquityPod on Twitter! Equity drops at 10:00 a.m. PT every Monday and at 7:00 a.m. PT on Wednesdays and Fridays, 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 Natasha got into on today's Equity Monday: Big tech: Marqeta's nine-figure acquisition of a two-year-old fintech, and which bucket of deals I think it falls into. Plus, Stripe's whole 12-month timeline thing and my edit for your incoming thought pieces. Big idea: Natasha's latest Startups Weekly column is all about the latecomer advantage. She talks about the idea, and its nuance, in the context of building startup rivals. Big innovation: We end with a look at Atomos, which landed $16 million to tug vehicles through space, and a bright spot of an analysis, coming from the TC+ world, on Black Web3 founders. As always, follow us on Twitter for more @equitypod! Equity drops at 10:00 a.m. PT every Monday and at 7:00 a.m. PT on Wednesdays and 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, Natasha, Mary and Becca got into: For our deals of the week, we talked about why tracking app Strava's purchase of Fatmap, a high-resolution 3D global map platform for the great outdoors, seems like a smart move, how Wasted wants to make port-a-potties less gross and more useful and All Raise CEO's decision to step down after less than one year in the role. Then we got into how the feds are scrutinizing Google's alleged ad tech monopoly and the implications for startups, before moving into different ways the downturn is impacting the way companies are hiring. And lastly, we discussed femtech's very good 2022 (even though we all agreed we don't love the term 'femtech'). Equity drops at 10:00 a.m. PT every Monday and at 7:00 a.m. PT on Wednesdays and Fridays, 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 Sarah Oh, the co-founder of T2, a Twitter rival, and Twitter's former Human Rights advisor. We get into a lot, not limited to but including: What her job title really encompasses The danger of going viral Re-building a clone Generative AI We also talk about what moderation 3.0 looks like and T2 daring to dream when building a Twitter-like company with safety at its core. Oh is clearly is a change maker, considering that the 30 minutes Natasha spent with her already expanded our understanding of how platforms think about - and invest in - trust at scale. Equity drops at 10:00 a.m. PT every Monday and at 7:00 a.m. PT on Wednesdays and Fridays, 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 Natasha got into now that she's back in The Bay: Big tech: Real quick, you should know that Elliott Management took a multi-billion stake in Salesforce, while Thoma Bravo scooped up a digital forensics company for $1.34 billion. Beyond that, the big tech news this week is Microsoft's multi-billion dollar, multi-year investment in Open AI. The extended partnership comes with lots of resources, quirks and legal headaches. Big idea: we're still thinking about this Anna Heim analysis, "The mirage of dry powder." Natasha talks about wet capital and failed capital calls, as to contextualize (not shut down!) some of the optimism in the market right now. (Use code "EQUITY" for 50% an annual TC+ membership). Big innovation (or in this case, reductions): Google's in-house incubator, Area 120, was severely impacted by Alphabet layoffs and Spotify cut 6% of staff, two layoff stories that had us thinking all about the fact that tech seems to have forgotten its umbrella. We end with tongue-twister note on Quordle, which just got scooped up by Merriam-Webster. As always, you can support Natasha by following her on Twitter and Instagram. The show also tweets from @equitypod, so follow us there! Equity drops at 10:00 a.m. PT every Monday and at 7:00 a.m. PT on Wednesdays and Fridays, 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 Mascarenhas, Mary Ann Azevedo and Rebecca Szkutak had fun on this week's recording: Deals of the week included a new Trust Fund, a $29M raise from a proptech started by the co-founders of cloud computing company DigitalOcean and a $27M bet by some U.S.-based VCs on an African gaming startup, Carry1st. Then we got into the state of fintech funding in 2022. Spoiler alert: It wasn't pretty. We compared fintech's year to that of global startups as a whole, and Becca gave us a lesson on the difference between structured rounds and down rounds. We had a blast discussing a new trend of compliment-based teen social media apps, including Gas, which recently got acquired by Discord, and Slay, a German startup that just raised $2.63 million. And finally, we discussed Microsoft's latest round of layoffs, which we found both unfortunate and a bit perplexing. On that note, we appreciate you all and thank you for the refreshing flood of feedback and compliments to start off the year. It always makes our days, and we hope we can lighten up and inform yours. Equity drops at 10:00 a.m. PT every Monday and at 7:00 a.m. PT on Wednesdays and Fridays, 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 Roger Lee, an entrepreneur who's spent the better part of a decade building tools for employees and employers alike. Lee is the creator of Layoffs.FYI and co-founder of Comprehensive and Human Interest. Here's what we got into: Roger's introduction to entrepreneurship during the dot-com bubble How the pandemic de-stigmatized layoffs How Comprehensive - described as the inverse of Layoffs.FYI - is helping employees level-up The importance of crowdsourcing and to monetize, or not to monetize...transparency We ended, as usual, with a lightning round and learned where Lee's career could have gone if he didn't take the founder path (hint: it's not VC). Equity drops at 10:00 a.m. PT every Monday and at 7:00 a.m. PT on Wednesdays and Fridays, 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 Natasha chatted about today: Big tech: Good news for Bitcoin and Ethereum, even as late-stage companies in the space cut to stay afloat. Big idea: I had two ones to get through. First, Africa had no new unicorns last year, despite record fundraising raising. What's that all about? Second, I want to talk about Stripe's internal valuation cut, yet again, and what that news means on the outside. Big innovation: I talk about yet another Clearco executive shake up and yet another Clearco round of layoffs, as well as the energy for the fintech moving forward. We end with a look at freshly-backed T2, which is opening up its game plan in a spreadsheet format. We love to see a Twitter rival, love even more to see one utilize the beauty of read-only spreadsheet features As always, you can support me by following me on Twitter and Instagram. The show also tweets from @equitypod, so follow us there and turn on notifications to never miss a new update from your favorite podcast team in tech (ugh, you shouldn't have). Equity drops at 10:00 a.m. PT every Monday and at 7:00 a.m. PT on Wednesdays and 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, Natasha was joined by Mary Ann Azevedo and Rebecca Szkutak to talk about the latest and greatest in tech: Deals of the week include Inflow, which has developed a self-help app designed to help people manage their ADHD, Cartograph Ventures, a new venture fund run by an ex-Juul operator, and the latest lawsuit and layoffs happening over at Carta The plethora of fintech M&A that took place this week, including Fidelity's acquisition of a startup called Shoobx (we couldn't pronounce its name either) and Deel's buyout of Capbase. Microsoft's deal with ChatGPT OpenAI which, we'll admit, has a structure that stumps even us. Plus, we talk about how Pittsburgh's expertise in AI may help give its startup scene a boost. There's Sam Altman, and then there's Sam Bankman-Fried, which brings us to our last theme. We talk about SBF's new Substack, the Kardashian method of distraction and why the legal world isn't a fan of levity. As Becca said so aptly, maybe billionaires (or former billionaires) should stop trying to be cute. We'll end with a reminder that the TechCrunch podcast network is now a machine that produces content, daily, from the most diverse slate of hosts in the tech pod world. Proud of our fellow co-hosts, and for those of you who may be starting a resolution or habit-stacking to start 2023, consider giving our other shows a try. Equity drops at 10:00 a.m. PT every Monday and at 7:00 a.m. PT on Wednesdays and 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, Natasha chatted with Haje Kamps and Brian Heater about CES which took place last week over in the ever-exciting Las Vegas area. All of our fantastic CES coverage can be found on the site, but for the purposes of today's show, we tried to keep it analytical, chatty and, at times, even a bit robotic. (You'll see what we mean). Here's what we got into: Post-CES feelings and why the show has stayed relevant after all these years How expectations of the show compared to the reality, robot pillows and all Who did and didn't show up Brian's new suggestion for what the conference should be called The energy of innovation on the showroom floor, from sustainability to big swings to over-engineered blenders Batteries! And finally, how the downturn and COVID-19 may have impacted the way startups are pitching themselves to the public. Selection bias, it's a thing! You can follow Haje through his work on the Daily Crunch, Brian through his work on Actuator and as always, catch up with us on Twitter @EquityPod. Equity drops every Monday at 7 a.m. PT and Wednesday and Friday at 6 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, a show 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 we got into for this week's Monday episode: Big Tech: Vista Equity Partners scooped up Duck Creek for $2.6 billion, and that's not the only billion-dollar figure we've seen from them over the past twelve months. Enterprise deals to start off the year? Take notes, startups. Big Idea: I'm thinking all about generative AI, especially thanks to Rebecca Szkutak's latest piece: "Whoops! Is generative AI already becoming a bubble?" I talk through the thesis of the piece, why venture always needs a buzzword, and why that's not necessarily a bad thing. And Big Innovation: We end with our roots in the world of startups. I'm talking Magic Leap's comeback story and a can't miss Dominic-Madori Davis piece tracking Black founder funding trends. And with that, goodbye until Wednesday! You can follow me on Twitter @nmasc_ or on Instagram @natashathereporter. And, as always, follow Equity on Twitter @equitypod. Equity drops at 10:00 a.m. PT every Monday and at 7:00 a.m. PT on Wednesdays and 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

To start off the year, we are welcoming Rebecca Szkutak as a returning host who will be joining us while Alex is out on paternity leave. We're lucky to have her for a few months, so give her a warm welcome! With that, Natasha, Mary Ann and Becca returned to the mic to unpack the latest and greatest on this first week back. 2022 was a dreary, relentless storm at times, but it also surprised us with how much innovation continues to brighten up this downturn. The start of 2023 has been no different. Here's what we got into: Some early standouts from CES, the annual consumer electronics show that is taking over Las Vegas right now. Yep, we're talking comfort pillows that are even more comfortable than you think, a smarter smart laundry machine and a security dash-cam for ride-sharing drivers. Then we jumped into deals of the week, which included Doorstead and USV's $200 million climate fund. Our first theme got into the latest development in the FTX and SBF saga. If you're like us, there's been so much happening that it's hard to keep track of all the twists and turns. But it's also evermore important to, as Becca gives us a Real Housewives angle to consider. We end with a conversation about layoffs, which rolled in this week to impact employees at Stitch Fix, Amazon, Salesforce and others. We dug into Natasha's latest feature story, in which she explores how laid off talent is rethinking risk for their next jobs. Equity drops at 10:00 a.m. PT every Monday and at 7:00 a.m. PT on Wednesdays and Fridays, 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

Happy New Year and welcome to 2023! As promised, Natasha is taking over Equity Monday for the beginning of this year as Alex is out on paternity leave. Big hugs to his growing family! We're starting the year with big post-PTO energy, because there's no other way we know how to do it. Here's what we chatted: Tesla missing expectations, Meta doing its let's-just-acquire-smart-talent thing, and a debut in the S&P 500 that caught our attention. A big idea that is running around over at Matrix. TC's Paul Sawers looks into how messaging apps may become more interoperable thanks to a fascinating new protocol. To us, this screams the ideas of decentralization from crypto last year, but with a more understandable pitch. Catch me Slacking you on WhatsApp! Finally, we end with a look ahead at CES this week. We have reporters on the ground catching the moonshots, and we'll have updates for you with the full crew on Friday! As always, there's more to come, so follow us on Twitter @EquityPod Equity drops at 10 a.m. PT every Monday and at 7 a.m. PT on Wednesdays and 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

In honor of 2022 finally coming to a close, the Equity crew is getting reflective. We dug through the archives, and this week, we're listening back to Alex, Natasha and Mary Ann's coverage of the biggest stories of the year as they unfolded. Here's what the trio got into with help from guest hosts, Becca Szkutak and Anita Ramaswamy: How Alex jinxed us from the start when he asked for more tech drama (TC+) back in January Early signs of the downturn to come with Better.com and the human cost of layoffs The will-they-won't-they courtship of Elon Musk and Twitter The downfall of FTX (TC+) and why you should never let FOMO guide your investments (TC+) Some of these stories are still evolving as we type, but don't fret - we'll catch you up in the new year. Of course, we can't sign off without saying thank you to all of you for sticking by us during this rollercoaster of a year, and we can't wait to see you in 2023! 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

Following a parade of headlines and news that Fast shut down back in April, Natasha and Alex asked: What are we missing when we talk about startup failure? The question comes after one of Natasha’s Startups Weekly columns, where she looked into the complexity of startup failure, fallacy of takedown stories, and importance of diversity in newsrooms. Here's an excerpt: "There’s the argument that startup tensions are inevitable and common, so should we spotlight every time something bubbles to the surface, especially at the cost of an underrepresented founder who may just be doing their best? There’s also an argument that the business is messy, so we should report on the issues as we hear about them; and there’s the narrative of the female takedown story, in which people believe that women are targeted by the press more than men due to unreasonably high standards." We discussed our own definitions of failure past Theranos and WeWork, examples of rising tensions, and what this means for early-stage startups and historically overlooked founders. We took a closer look at another wave of layoffs, some notable valuation cuts, and the implosion of Fast to weigh against 2021's strident startup optimism. don't forget to take our listener survey and enter for a chance to win a free year of TC+! Equity drops every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 7 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, a show 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

The Equity crew is kicking off your week with a special episode from our sister podcast, Found, the stories behind the startups. Co-hosts Darrell Etherington and Becca Szkutak spoke with Alice Albrecht from Re:collect, a software tool that augments creativity by helping people focus, recall, and connect their ideas. The conversation covered a lot of ground from how to hone your pitch when your product is so cerebral, how technology can help creativity but Alice argues will never replace it, and how developing AI requires building safeguards from the jump. If you want to hear more from Equity and Found, don't forget to take our listener survey and enter for a chance to win a free year of TC+! For more from Found, connect with us: On Twitter On Instagram Via email: [email protected] Equity drops every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 7 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 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, the Equity team is spotlighting one of our sister podcasts: TechCrunch Live. Matt Burns hopped on the mic with Jenny Lefcourt from Freestyle Partners and Guillaume de Zwirek, CEO and co-founder of WELL Health, to talk all about raising a Series A and specific steps for founders to follow. As you’ll hear from Lefourt and de Zwirek, there are notable differences between raising a seed round and a Series A round. Investors look at different aspects of the company, and the founder must prepare for the fundraising differently. Rather than selling a story, they’re selling a company. To help even more founders, Lefcourt prepared a blog post to go along with her TechCrunch Live appearance that goes even deeper into raising a Series A. If you want to hear more shows like this, don't forget to take our listener survey and enter for a chance to win a free year of TC+! Equity drops every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 7 a.m. PT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has agreat show on crypto, ashow that interviews founders, ashow that details how our stories come togetherand 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 is taking the reins with another favorite from the TechCrunch Disrupt stage. She sat down with Brex CEO and co-founder, Henrique Dubugras, and Anu Hariharan, YC’s managing director for continuity and an early Brex investor, to expose the context around this whirlwind of a year. The conversation candidly uncovers details behind the fintech's pandemic pivot, layoffs, and going remote. If you love the conversation, share it with a friend. And if you want more on Brex, Mary Ann dove deeper into the conversation last month. Equity drops every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 7 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, a show 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