Equity

Latest Episodes:

Chain Reaction: Ripple’s chief legal officer talks SEC lawsuit, XRP ‘win’ and future regulation (w/ Stu Alderoty) Aug 04, 2023

Show notes

Today, we're bringing you an episode of our sister podcast, Chain Reaction.

Chain Reaction unpacks and dives deep into the latest trends, drama and news in crypto with some of the biggest names in the industry to break things down block by block for the crypto curious.

Jacquelyn interviewed Stu Alderoty, chief legal officer of Ripple Labs.

Stu spent most of his career working for traditional financial institutions in legal roles at firms like CIT Group, American Express and HSBC and left that world in 2019 to join Ripple.

Ripple has been around since 2012, but has been making headlines lately for the recent federal court ruling that stated the XRP token, which is linked to Ripple, is not a security when sold to the general public but can be treated as a security for past XRP sales to institutional clients.

We broke down the nitty gritty details of the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York federal court ruling for Ripple and what it means for the company, XRP token and crypto ecosystem.

We also talked about:

Securities vs. commodities
Ripple’s SEC lawsuit
Future regulation and clarity
Advice for other startups

Need to catch up before you listen? Read these for a quick overview:

Chain Reaction comes out every other Thursday at 12:00 p.m. ET, so be sure to subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite pod platform to keep up with the action.

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

Yeah, but is that venture backable? Aug 02, 2023

Show notes

This week, Alex and Mary Ann had Sara Mauskopf on the show, the CEO and co-founder of the childcare marketplace, Winnie, and a former Postmates and Twitter denizen. Here’s what we got into:

The progress of Winnie over time, and how it found its niche in the childcare market
The state of care as a venture-backable category, and where startups can find the most impact and business results
The reported issues at Papa and the pressures of fundraising-driven growth in care-oriented markets
And, of course, why care work is not given its full due and value in our society.

We had a blast with this one. Thank you for sticking with Equity for all these years. We’ll see you live at Disrupt!

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 and more!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Equity Monday: Twitter's rebrand is a go, and we're Blazing Our Collective Glory Jul 31, 2023

Show notes

Our Monday show covers the latest in tech news from the weekend and what’s making headlines early in the week. Here’s the rundown from this morning!

Stocks are higher around the world today, but the real story in equities is earnings. This week we are going to hear from AMD, Uber, Pinterest, Shopify, PayPal and Block, Apple and Amazon, Alibaba and Airbnb, Coinbase and Cloudflare. It’s a lot.
In crypto-land, things are muted, but it appears that the Coinbase-SEC lawsuit had a bit more behind it than we first realized.
Tiger is out of Flipkart, selling its remaining stake to Walmart for $1.4 billion. The American investor did well on its Flipkart investment.
Fidelity has cut the value of its investment in Gupshup, but remarked its Reddit, Discord and X investments up some. So, the news is not all bad.
Twitter’s rebrand is a go on the App Store and the social app has a new tagline that we alluded to in today’s episode title, while Shein and Temu fight it out for global domination of the fast-fashion market.

Whew! What a start to the week, yeah?

For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's always earnings season if you look hard enough Jul 28, 2023

Show notes

We had our friend and colleague Kirsten Korosec on the podcast this week, meaning that Mary Ann and Alex got to stretch their legs a bit and talk things that move and beep and boop. Here's what we got into:

Deals of the Week: AngelList bought Nova, taking the well-known venture service into the more traditional private equity realm; Waymo is focusing on self-driving cars instead of trucks, which has Mary Ann worried; and Alex wanted to talk about interest rates.
On the subject of Earnings: Guess what? AI costs are here, AI revenues are coming as the ad market recovers. For big tech earnings thus far have generally gone well, though not perfectly.
Do not miss GM news from the transit desk, of course!
And we wrapped with some interesting analysis from the TechCrunch+ team on how funds of funds might be one way to get more LP capital into diverse venture funds.

Whew, what a week y'all. It's hot and we are tired, but we had a blast recording this for you. Talk more Monday!

For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What’s next for social media from someone who’s Extremely Online Jul 26, 2023

Show notes

This week, Alex had Washington Post columnist Taylor Lorenz on to chat about her upcoming book, Extremely Online, the history of online platforms, and the rise of creators.

We've covered the creator economy a few times on the podcast over the years, but this addition to our historical coverage is more than worth inclusion. Here's what we got into:

All the cool kids are pre-ordering Lorenz's book, which you can find here.
Why online work has always been treated like a sideshow: While culture is often created -- or born -- online, there's a disconnect between historical centers of authority and influence, and where it's bubbling up today.
The rise and fall of Vine: Vine's massive rise and later implosion is a technology story, a startup story, and the saga of how a platform's userbase and its leadership can often be on different pages. In a sense Vine was a warning of what we'd see later on when it came to platforms winding up at odds with the very folks driving attention their way.
New formats, new platforms: It's worth understanding the progression of online influence shifting from text (blogs) to pictures (social media) to video (TikTok, et al). When new formats have come to the fore, they often bring new platforms along with them, or vice versa. Alex wanted to know what might be next!

And we wrapped with quick notes about AI and Twitter, er X, whatever it's called. As always, we're back on Friday with your news rundown. Talk soon!

For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Please re-xeet this podcast episode Jul 24, 2023

Show notes

Here’s the rundown from this morning:

Stocks are mixed around the world: Chinese equities sold off while American shares were set to rise at the open. A massive run of earnings this week should shake up the stock market for tech companies and their traditional brethren alike.
In crypto-land, prices are back to where they were pre-XRP decision. I don't know what to make of that, but do know that Worldcoin is still a thing and is now actually out.
Twitter's new brand: All hail X, I suppose. Musk's work to defenstrate what we all knew about Twitter, the company is being rebranded to X, which the company intends to be a superapp of sorts. Cool if it works, embarrassing if not.
Spotify is finally raising prices, and all I can say is thank god. It was getting weird to get all the world's music for what felt like a song. I want to pay more making the price hike welcome, if still far smaller than it should be.
SF really is the new AI hub.

Ahead we have Disrupt, which is taking up more and more of my time. See you there!

For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

That's capitalism, baby! Jul 21, 2023

Show notes

Here's what we got into today:

Deals of the Week: Layoffs at Cameo, where fintech valuations are today and where they are going, and Egnyte's slow-burn path to an IPO.
The end of VanMoof: Raising a lot of money doesn't necessitate a startup's success. Such is the case with VanMoof, which raised nine-figures and built and sold e-bikes. Now it is no more, and we have questions.
CEO turnover: As the CEO of OnlyFans steps down, the gang dug into when a CEO can or should step down. Certainly some companies do best, for example, with long-term leadership by a founder. But not all.
Generative AI and the writer's strike: It turns out that we're bigger South Park fans than we knew as a group, but that's not really the point. What matters is that a recently released 'AI-generated' episode of the show is driving a conversation today concerning how critical — or not — humans are to the creative process. Google is also busy here.

And that's the end of the week! Equity is back on Monday! Chat soon!

For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Venture's Q2 was calm (and that's not good) Jul 19, 2023

Show notes

So, what happened in venture capital-land during Q2 2023? A lot, and not very much. We got PitchBook venture guru Kyle Stanford to come back on the podcast to riff with us on the good, the bad, and the late-stage.

Here's what we got into:

How did American venture perform in Q2 2023? Welcome to the new normal, and why that's actually bad news.
How are Seed deals faring, and what about later-stage transactions?
How bad is the slow pace of exits today, and what impact will they have on venture capital fundraising itself? More on the topic here.
And, any green shoots popping up? Here's a rundown of what could be considered good news.

You can read the underlying dataset we were riffing on here, and we are back on Friday with the news roundup! Chat soon!

For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Equity Monday: Intel backs robotics startup, Twitter loses money, and fintech shows signs of life Jul 17, 2023

Show notes

Hello, and welcome back to Equity, the podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.
Our Monday show covers the latest in tech news from the weekend and what’s making headlines early in the week. Here’s the rundown from this morning!

Stocks are largely down around the world following weak Chinese economic data for the second quarter. We’re also heading back into an earnings cycle, so get ready to hear from Tesla and Netflix this week, among other major names.
In crypto-land, the XRP/Ripple partial victory drove a short-lived boomlet for many crypto tokens; XRP is the clear winner from last week.
Twitter is cash-flow negative, per its CEO, but the company intends to double-down on paying individual tweeters for their high-view activities.
While Twitter molts, Threads continues to grow like a weed. Speaking of Meta, the company is in trouble in Norway.
On the startup front, Intel invested in Figure, which we think is quite neat, and Thunes is now nearly a unicorn!

We will be back on Wednesday and Friday. Talk to you 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!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're in the pruning phase of tech layoffs Jul 14, 2023

Show notes

Here's the rundown from Mary Ann and Alex:

A new Chinese AI model had us wondering who is really going to win the AI war and whether governments will play a role — perhaps not the role that they are expecting.
A founder that Founders Fund funded is now funding other founders at Founders Fund: Yep.
Sticking to the venture theme, is it possible for AI models in venture to actually create a less biased landscape for entrepreneurs? Connetic Ventures thinks so!
Two bits of good news: Tech layoffs have dramatically slowed, and slowing inflation could herald the end of interest rate hikes, which could bolster tech valuations. Or at least cut some of the pressure.
Finally, as Twitter does what it usually does when a rival service takes off, we asked ourselves how other social media services are doing. We are more familiar with some than others.

As always, Equity will be back for you bright and early Monday morning. Talk soon!

For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices