Equity

Latest Episodes:

Cleanup, aisle FTX Nov 14, 2022

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.

Here's what we got into on our Monday episode, a weekly kick-off of sorts:

Stocks are mixed around the world, up in parts of Asia and Europe, but down sharply in the United States to start the week.
Crypto prices have recovered modestly, but remain sharply depressed from the last week. The FTX damage continues to reverberate.
Speaking of crypto, the FTX saga continues. The latest includes a hack on Friday, and a massive emission of new FTT tokens that was so poorly received that major exchanges pulled deposits of the now-radioactive security.
All the exchange drama has led to other exchanges taking fire, and Coinbase looking great in contrast.
Elsewhere in tech-land: Fake meat raises a bunch more money, Klarna is doing some neat product work, India has unbanned VLC, which was a head-scratcher to begin with, and e-commerce infra startups are still raising capital!

And that’s all the time we had this morning! More Wednesday!

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, 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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It’s not a rug pull if it’s an accident Nov 11, 2022

Show notes

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.

We thought that last week was a lot. It was, but this week was somehow more. More chaotic, rapid-fire change at a number of massive tech companies kept us on our toes. So, while our beloved co-host Natasha was out, we couldn't do the recording down a set of hands, so we brought Becca aboard with Mary Ann and Alex.

The list of news was so long that we were cutting entire sections up until we hit record, and even still we went over time. If you like longer episodes, this one is for you.

Deals of the Week: What's going on with the former Peloton CEO's new rug startup? And how is Tellus going to offer much better consumer savings rates? And, finally, how wrong can Alex get the Harmonic business model until he figures it out live on the show?
Mega-layoffs: From there, we had to sit down and discuss the massive Meta layoffs. Our read is that the company is doing right by the folks it is cutting, which is not as much as we can say about some other companies in the world also undergoing massive staffing cuts. Naturally, this brought up Twitter to a degree, the smaller social network being the Main Character in tech news up until, well:
WTF FTX? Ah, FTX. Last week it was worth $32 billion and its founder was arguably the face of crypto around the world. And now Sequoia has pulled its on-site hagiography, SBF is a pariah, and FTX may be going to zero. There's going to be a mini-series about this, isn't there?

We are back Monday! Have a lovely weekend!

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!

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Tech layoffs may get worse before they get better Nov 09, 2022

Show notes

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 Nolan Church, the CEO and co-founder of Continuum, about his perspective on the tech layoff wave. While we do indeed get into how his vision of fractional work fits into this conversation, we start with the fact that Church helped conduct Carta's layoffs in 2020 (a low of his entire career, he says) and what that experience taught him about the importance of being direct.

Here are a few of the topics we get into:

Twitter's recent layoffs, Jack's silence and who should take ownership for what
The generic CEO statement on macroeconomic challenges
Stripe's recent layoffs
What is the best way to conduct a layoff, and how should you communicate with staff? How does that change based on stage?
Is the rumor that all startups should just cut 20% of staff to extend runway accurate at all?
If Church could go back in time, would he change anything about the way that Carta conducted its layoffs?
What executive role is most likely to be disrupted and why Q1 may bring more doom and gloom into the tech sphere
And finally, Church's attempt to summarize all of 2022 in a headline (I don't disagree with his final answer, by the way).

From Natasha: I'll fully take ownership for the fact that my column from just two weeks ago (!) has poorly aged. If you or someone you know is whipping up a cool program - like this - to support those laid off, hit me up on Twitter and I may just create a good news show.

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!

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One day all tech news will merely be updates to Twitter moderation policies Nov 07, 2022

Show notes

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.

Stocks are up around the world, which is a nice thing to wake up to. Crypto prices are down a smidgen, but nothing major
There's FTX-Binance drama afoot, in case that's your jam.
On the Twitter beat, in the wake of rehires Musk is tweaking his work on moderation policies regarding impersonation, verification appears to be on hold, and more.
PhotoRoom raised $19 million, the Unity megadeal is complete, no matter what we thought about it, and Yassir just raised $150 million from Bond. Has Bond been quiet lately? Not sure but dang, this round was a big one.
There's an election tomorrow in America.

And that’s our show! More Wednesday!

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Most of the unicorns aren’t Nov 04, 2022

Show notes

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.

Oh what a week. What a week. Things are busier than ever at TechCrunch, where we're coming out of our post-conference stupor and charing straight back into a packed news cycle. Sure, Musk is still making waves, but there are startup rounds to cover, layoffs to chew on, earnings coverage, unicorn reports, new data, and more.

After cutting back sharply on material and still going long, here's what Mary Ann, Natasha, and Alex got into this week:

Rewind wants to help people with their memory. We talk about how the startup, which launched this week, uses recording technology to help you get what you see, hear and say at your finger tips.
We talked about Onward, a startup that wants to help divorced or separated parents fight less about money and how it just raised nearly $10 million despite being pre-revenue.
The somewhat odd, possible Byju's IPO-spinoff of Aakash, a tutoring company that it bought the other year. Our views can be summarized in meme format: An edtech IPO? In this economy?
Unicorns face an incredibly uphill journey to get public, which may explain in part why Byju's is not itself going public (recall that it had had plans, but like with so many other companies those are on hold).
And then there was Brex, which announced a new partnership with Techstars despite a big push into the enterprise space.
Stripe revealed that it has cut 14% of its staff, or over 1,100 people, and its CEO and co-founder Patrick Collison admitting that the payments giant had "overhired for the world we're in."
And finally, there's a new VC ratings company in the neighborhood. How do we feel? Better than some VCs, at least.

Got all that? Good. More Monday morning.

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Investors are either ghosting, quiet quitting or rewriting their entire playbook Nov 02, 2022

Show notes

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 topic, think about a question and unpack the rest. This week, Natasha and Alex interviewed one of their favorite reporters, Business Insider's Melia Russell! The trio chatted through how the role of a venture capitalist is changing. That means we spoke about emerging fund managers, seasoned operators, and, of course, Russell's latest story about how some investors are re-writing the playbooks when it comes to maternity leave policies at their firms.

I don't want to tease out all the hot takes, but let's just say that this dispatch is a tad blunt. For one, apparently, no one thinks that venture firm M&A is a thing other than us. Anyways, we think you'll love the episode, learn something new about how venture is changing, and probably have a take on whether this is natural job cycle stuff or true structural changes.

We're back Friday with our weekly roundup, which, as you can imagine, is going to be packed. Chat soon!

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Elon Musk and Twitter Close Deal: Hot Takes (Bonus Episode) Oct 31, 2022

Show notes

It's official - Elon Musk has sealed the deal on Twitter, and we're bringing you a bonus episode to talk through it all. In case you missed it, Alex took to Twitter Spaces on Friday with Darrell Etherington, Amanda Silberling, Anita Ramaswamy, and Taylor Hatmaker to process some of what’s gone down, and what comes next on a special joint Equity/TechCrunch Podcast episode, so have a listen and be sure to read all about the Elon era at Twitter on TechCrunch.

We'll talk to you again on Wednesday!

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Twitter is a startup again, I guess Oct 31, 2022

Show notes

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.

Stocks are mixed around the world, notably lower in China on the back of some negative economic data, and down in the United States ahead of what is expected to be another rise in interest rates thanks to the Federal Reserve. Crypto prices have held onto recent gains.
A busy weekend of Twitter leaks lead the news cycle. Precisely if, and if yes, how much, Twitter can charge for verified accounts to keep their badge is now a point of conversation. Other reports of development deadlines with termination held as a threat if they are not met are likely doing great things for staffer morale.
It turns out that self-driving cars are still far away. I am crying.
Startups Zebra Labs and Invygo raised money, showing that the global startup investment market has not frozen, and that there is still funding for more future-facing efforts like Zebra in the metaverse.
Finally, we're keeping close tabs on the Q4 venture capital cycle. If we don't see a rebound soon, how many unicorns die?

And that's our show! More Wednesday!

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I regret to inform you that Elon has something to do with this Oct 28, 2022

Show notes

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.

We hope that you are in good form this Friday, alive, well and ready to rock. We certainly were. And in a change of pace, as our dear Mary Ann was off this week, the excellent Anita Ramaswamy joined Natasha Mascarenhas and Alex Wilhelm on the mics. (Theresa, as per usual, held down the production front!)

What did we merry three get into? The following:

Quick Hits: Launch House is shaking up its legal team as it sifts through what is left of its reputation; Sequoia India is still making big edtech bets; and BeReal is wealthy and, in our view, pretty cool. But does it have the staying power it will need?
Twitter layoffs: When we prepped for the show, it seemed that massive Twitter layoffs could impact up to 75% of the company's staff. Since then, the figure has come down some. How much? That's not clear, but what is is the fact that Twitter's new chapter is supposed to begin, and soon.
King Apple: The multifront war attacking Apple's massive and pervasive demand that it gets 30% of all transaction value on the App Store continues to rack up detractors. This time? NFT and other crypto fans.
China: We closed on a brief riff on Chinese startups!

We are back Monday for a spooky episode!

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Yes, Chief Oct 26, 2022

Show notes

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 topic, think about a question and unpack the rest. This week, Natasha is bringing one of her favorite Disrupt panels to your ears. She sat down with Chief co-founders Lindsay Kaplan and Carolyn Childers to talk about the future of their private membership club for women in leadership positions. (Shout out Bryce for this amazing live illustration he did while we were all on stage!).

The conversation touches on outlasting competitors, pandemic-defined community, the duality unicorn valuations and the word girlboss. If you love the conversation, share it with a friend. And if you want more on Chief, read a recap post that my colleague Ron Miller wrote about all things membership community and waitlists.

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