Equity

Latest Episodes:

Is ChatGPT the iBeer of LLMs? Jul 12, 2023

Show notes

This week we had a very special guest on the podcast: Matthew Lynley, one of the founding hosts of Equity and a former TechCruncher. Since his Equity days, Lynley went off and started his very own AI-focused publication called Supervised.

We brought him back on the show to ask him questions in a format where we can all learn together. Here’s what we got into:

From Transformers to GPT4: How attention became so critical inside of neural networks, and how transformers set the path for modern AI services.
Recent acquisitions in the AI space, and what it means for the “LLM stack:” With Databricks buying MosaicML and Snowflake already busy with its own checkbook, a lot of folks are working to build out a full-stack LLM data extravaganza. We talked about what that means.
Where startups sit in the current AI race: While it’s great to think about the majors, we also need to know what the startup angle is. The answer? It’s a little early to say, but what is clear is that startups are taking some big swings at the industry and are hellbent to snag a piece of the pie.

Thanks to everyone for hanging out with us. Equity is back on Friday for our weekly news roundup!

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, 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.

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Equity Monday: People like Threads Jul 10, 2023

Show notes

Here’s the rundown from this morning:

The global stock market is looking mixed, with the leading piece of financial news dealing with inflation data in the Chinese market.
On the crypto side of things, there are no massive price movements in key tokens to examine. That said, the NFT market has been turbulent in the last few days due to incentive changes as a key marketplace.
An FYI: We are back in earnings season, but there’s little to report on the tech side of things this week. Expect the pace to pick up next week.
Ant has a new valuation thanks to a choice to offer share buybacks to existing backers. It’s still worth nearly $80 billion, just a lot less than it might have been valued at back in its 2020 IPO that got scuttled.
People like Threads: The new social service from Meta has reached the 100 million sign-up mark rapidly. More on threads here on the TC Podcast.
In Startup-Land: FrontRow is shutting down in another blow to Indian edtech, while Propel raised $2.7 million to connect African tech talent to global employers.

And that is our show! We are back Wednesday, and Friday 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, 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!

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Hey, stuck startups, reducing growth could make you less fundable Jul 07, 2023

Show notes

We're switching things up and bringing you two interviews this week, so let's niche down to a single person, think about their work and unpack the rest.

Mary Ann took the lead this time, and she sat down (virtually) with Immad Akhund, the CEO and co-founder of Mercury. For those who are unfamiliar, the fintech made headlines earlier this year for how it stepped in to help fill the business banking void left in the wake of Silicon Valley Bank's collapse.

Here's what the pair caught up on:

Mercury's impressive growth in the months since SVB crashed
Lessons learned from Immad's angel investing experience
What Immad calls the "Startup Death Spiral" and how to escape it

As always, Equity will be back for you bright an early Monday morning. 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!

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

Steering through venture's global correction with the GPCA's CEO Jul 05, 2023

Show notes

Long-time Equity listeners and TechCrunch readers should be familiar with LAVCA, and association of capital managers in the Latin America region. We have reported on its data a number of times. Well, it turns out that LAVCA is part of the larger Global Private Capital Association, which keeps tabs on a host of markets that we're working to cover more carefully as startup activity becomes an increasingly global phenomenon.

So to cap off the second quarter, and to get our claws into what is going on around the world, we had Cate Ambrose, the CEO of the GPCA on the show to riff with us about Asia and Africa and Latin America and Central and Easter Europe. Here's what we wanted to find out:

How wild was the 2021-era venture peak in less mature startup markets?
How resilient are smaller startup ecosystems in a more conservative venture and macroeconomic environment?
Are we seeing green shoots anywhere in the world? Or put another way, where is the rebound kicking off?
We closed with a short discussion on the role of government in startup markets and squeezed in an AI question because how could we not!

We have another interview coming your way Friday, so stay tuned!

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

Well done, Pismo and Visa! You gave SoftBank a win Jun 30, 2023

Show notes

Mary Ann and Alex are back for another busy news week chock full of deals to chew through.

Here's the rundown:

Deals of the Week: We think that the idea behind the recently-funded Honey Homes is excellent, but we're split about the cost. We also went over Gusto's latest financial achievements and its plans to team up with Remote.
Fintech M&A: The biggest deal of the week in fintech was Visa's purchase of Pismo. We haven't had unicorn-level acquisitions lately, so this one was welcome. Elsewhere in the space, Brex has brought on board a former SVB and a16z denizen, and Ramp bought Cohere.io (not this Cohere, the other one).
Other M&A: But those weren't the only deals. Databricks bought MosaicML, IBM bought Apptio, and ThoughtSpot has acquired Mode Analytics.
Help, my unicorn is starving: We closed with Alex's look at the declining funding to unicorn and web3 startups, as well as Rebecca Szkutak's latest on the secondary market in the process.

Equity will be back on Wednesday as we head off into yet another holiday weekend here in the U.S. when Alex will finally put his PTO to use. In the meantime, let's catch up on Twitter @EquityPod. Talk 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!

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

Nubank's CEO explains what the US could learn from LatAm fintech Jun 28, 2023

Show notes

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!

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

Equity Monday: Crypto ticks higher, fintech gets interesting again and fraud is still bad Jun 26, 2023

Show notes

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!

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

Dropbox hearts AI, the creator-platform wars and why we’re bullish on fake booze Jun 23, 2023

Show notes

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!

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

The startup boom failed to build a creator utopia Jun 21, 2023

Show notes

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:

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!

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

Alibaba shakes up its leadership, OpenAI lobbies EU regulators, and the late-stage market is a mess Jun 20, 2023

Show notes

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.