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 connected a slew of seemingly-unrelated news items to answer a big question: How do we balance community and capitalism? The original question we sought to explore was "can you buy a community?" The answer to that question, after further exploration, felt obvious enough: no, so no what? Combining Epic Games' recent acquisition of Bandcamp, Commsor's latest ra...
Mar 09, 2022•26 min•Ep. 487
Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. Every Monday, Grace and Alex scour the news and record notes on what’s going on to kick off the week. As before, the Russian invasion of Ukraine was top of mind, but lots of other things were going on so we had more than plenty to yammer about: The global stock market is taking more body-blows in the wake of rising oil prices and geopolitical instability. EA an...
Mar 07, 2022•10 min•Ep. 486
Since the birth of Equity in mid-March of 2017, Chris Gates has been part of the team. Indeed, he helped found the show, and over the next half-decade produced and edited hundreds of episodes. He was, in short, a pillar of the team, and a key driver of how show operated day to day. Which is to say that he brought kindness, and warmth, and care to our work. As one of our colleagues put it, TechCrunch's podcast history can't be written without his name as a huge part of it. Sadly for the Equity te...
Mar 04, 2022•41 min•Ep. 485
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 brought on Mary Ann for a special fintech episode, perhaps our spiciest of the year so far. We asked: Are fintech startups playing offense or defense today? To start, we spoke about Ramp and Pipe's latest moves (here, here), which include moving into the travel space and branching out into media and entertainment, respectively, and how they reflect the broade...
Mar 02, 2022•29 min•Ep. 484
Every Monday, Grace and Alex scour the news and record notes on what’s going on to kick off the week. This weekend was yet another that was full of news from Ukraine, which meant that the tech market was slightly quieter than usual. But not so quiet that we didn't have lots to chat about, so here's the latest: The Russian startup market isn't huge -- data here -- but when we consider the number of startups in Ukraine as well, the impact of Russia's war and the world's sanctions will bite. Russia...
Feb 28, 2022•11 min•Ep. 483
Today we gathered to do our live show, something that was scheduled a long time ago. Obviously, the world's condition has changed since. So, we sat down and tore up our notes doc and put most of the show on hold. What we wound up recording was short, and frankly a little bit raw and from the gut. But it just didn't feel right for us to sit and chit chat about funding rounds and executive shuffles when Russia is busy invading a democracy under false pretenses. TechCrunch has some notes on the sit...
Feb 24, 2022•6 min•Ep. 482
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 asked: How has the great resignation changed the way startups hire? The conversation started with defining the Great Resignation and sharing numbers to back the sentiment that everyone can't stop talking about. As always, the flowed to naturally care more about the employees within startups, and their feelings, than employers and the power they've traditional...
Feb 23, 2022•25 min•Ep. 481
Every Monday, or Tuesday, Grace and Alex scour the news and record notes on what’s going on to kick off the week. We are a day late here thanks to the American holiday, which means that it's going to be a short week -- here at least. But that doesn't mean that things are slow. In fact, the opposite: Russian military aggression in Ukraine is hammering the global stock market, although not everywhere it's worth noting. Crypto prices are also flat to down, generally. Most crypto tokens are off shar...
Feb 22, 2022•14 min•Ep. 480
This is Saturday, which means it's not a usual day for us to drop an episode. But what are we if not try-hards at heart? So, we're back today. What do we have on store for you? I brought Anshu Sharma onto the podcast -- and a Twitter space, so make sure you are following the podcast, yeah? -- to chat interest rates, technology growth, startup valuations, and how they all tie together. Sharma was the right person to have on the show because he's been a big tech employee (Oracle, Salesforce), an i...
Feb 19, 2022•29 min•Ep. 479
This week, Natasha and Alex and Mary Ann got together with Chris and Grace to rock our regular Friday news roundup. This time, however, with extra zip as we're staring down a long weekend that, let's be clear, everyone needs. Regardless, here's the show rundown: Don't call us your metamate, friend. Startups news of the week: Ro raises even more, Airbase partners with Amex, and Deel wants to give employers a way to fund their payroll in crypto, no matter where their employees are based. The crypt...
Feb 18, 2022•36 min•Ep. 478
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 asked: What can startups learn from the rise, and now struggles, of Hopin? For companies that grew like weed, what’s next? In the show, we talked through Hopin's meteoric rise and why we called them the fastest growth story of the era, comparable or better than what Slack and other well-known growth stories managed during their own ascent. However, with Hopin...
Feb 16, 2022•28 min•Ep. 477
Every Monday, Grace and Alex scour the news, and record notes on what’s going on to kick off the week. Today we had were reeling in the wake of the American football championship, and the fact that is once again snowing where Alex lives. Alas. But snow or not, the news was fascinating: We chewed on the Just Eat delisting situation, which appears to be a cost-cutting move. Delivery Hero is also struggling, and the value of Deliveroo is in the toilet. So it's not clear that European food delivery ...
Feb 14, 2022•8 min•Ep. 476
We had the full crew aboard today for our live taping, headed by our killer production team Grace and Chris, and hosting crew Mary Ann, Natasha and Alex. Overall, it was a success? Our streaming tech took us to various Internet platforms, and people came to Hopin and asked questions. Thank you! It's always a risk to do something new, so thank you for making it a win. But enough of all that, what did we talk about? Here's the rundown: Funding rounds from Mos (edtech + fintech), Alchemy (blockchai...
Feb 11, 2022•36 min•Ep. 475
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 crawled through the Metaverse, leaning on Facebook's latest earnings and Microsoft's newest appetite as somewhat of a map. Our question, after much thinking, gets into the heart of what the Metaverse is built for: Will the metaverse be for work, or for play? We’re not picking sides, necessarily, but exploring how two companies within Big Tech are staking bets...
Feb 09, 2022•28 min•Ep. 474
Every Monday, Grace and Alex scour the news, and record notes on what's going on to kick off the week. Today we had a fun mix of news, and things that made us laugh. The Spotify-Rogan situation continued as last week ended, with more episodes of the show coming down. More apologies. And more of Spotify trying to straddle the difference between platform and publisher, while hoping to reap the rewards of both while not fully owning up to the responsibility. Wag is going public, and my body is read...
Feb 07, 2022•10 min•Ep. 473
Hello and happy weekend from the Equity crew! We had a busy week, including a Twitter Space with Natasha and Alex taking to the mics to dig into some tasty public-market news. Naturally our show is more startup-focused than public-market centered. But! We can learn a lot from the world of public companies that have a wide footprint inside particular tech niches that matter for younger companies. So when we digest PayPal's results and what investors did to its value this week, we are not super in...
Feb 05, 2022•23 min•Ep. 472
We had the full crew aboard today, headed by our killer production team Grace and Chris, and hosting crew Mary Ann, Natasha and Alex. Last week we promised Cute Farming Robots, and this week we delivered, along with a lot more. But first, the Equity team along with our sister podcast Found are doing live recordings starting soon. You can find out more here, but Equity will be live-taped on Hopin next Thursday. Come hang out, it should be fun! https://techcrunch.com/2022/01/31/come-hang-with-us-f...
Feb 04, 2022•34 min•Ep. 471
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 brought on the Most Online™ reporter at TechCrunch, Amanda Silberling to talk about one of her recent pieces, "maybe creator funds are bad." The column, mixed with the recent saga between Spotify and Joe Rogan, helped us ask a bigger question for this week's episode: What makes a platform economically viable for creators? It's no small question. Creators are ...
Feb 02, 2022•28 min•Ep. 470
This Monday show actually felt a bit old-school, in that the weekend controversy in tech has spilled over into the working morning, meaning that we need to talk about it. But first, markets: After the somewhat punishing start to last week, today's trading is somewhat more staid. Global equities are moving, but nothing suicidal, and cryptos are off a bit in the last 24 hours, but up in the last seven days. Naturally, given what has happened in recent trading sessions, all that could change in a m...
Jan 31, 2022•9 min•Ep. 469
What did we get into? Well, a host of pretty awesome stuff, even if we had to leave Cute Farming Robots in the tank for another few days: We had funding rounds from Anyplace, which is building a way to make the digital nomad life work in a WFH world, notes on Frost Giant's Series A, which Alex really needs to finish writing up, and Parthean, which Natasha covered and did a great job explaining. Here's to better financial literacy in general. We need it. Then we chatted through what Mark Cuban is...
Jan 28, 2022•33 min•Ep. 468
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 brought on Bessemer partner Mary D'Onofrio to chat about the public market slump, but more importantly, its trickle down impact on private companies. Our big question was a broad and important one, built off of our most recent three views column for TechCrunch+. How is this change in market conditions going to affect startups? As a trio, we chatted about the ...
Jan 26, 2022•31 min•Ep. 467
If you own stuff, I am sorry to report that you are probably poorer today than you were on Friday, and even less wealthy than you were the Friday before. Things are selling off and we had to talk about it: Stocks are down, and cryptos are getting utterly hammered. It's a bad time to own equities, but worse if you are invested in digital assets. Bitcoin, ether, and Solana are taking body-blows while the stock market wilts. I guess this means that all our 401k contributions will be cheaper in Febr...
Jan 24, 2022•9 min•Ep. 466
Despite the fact that it is a holiday week here in the United States, tech news was, well, as nuts as it usually is. At this point anything else would be a shock. So what did we get to? All of this and more: Rebundle's incredibly neat startup idea, and funding round. We love a Midwest startup here on the show thanks to Alex's roots, which means that when we got to talk about banana fiber, hair extensions, venture capital, and St. Louis all at once, we were hype. Wheel reinvented itself again wit...
Jan 21, 2022•30 min•Ep. 465
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 dared to refresh perhaps the most common conversation in startups these days: the ubiquity, and resulting irrelevance, of unicorns. Our big question wasn't a simple one: Do we care that the meaning of unicorns has been hollowed out? The conversation ran the gamut, starting with information on unicorn creation rates, startup hit success and of course, funding ...
Jan 19, 2022•23 min•Ep. 464
This is our Monday (Tuesday) show, our short ramp into the week where we talk about the larger picture to get our feet wet. We're a day late due to an American holiday, and I can say later in the day with this thanks to my schedule. But, better late than never, here's what we got into: Yet another bad day for assets: Stocks around the world were broadly lower, with software shares taking yet another hit in the key US market. Microsoft wants to buy Activision Blizzard for nearly $69 billion dolla...
Jan 18, 2022•7 min•Ep. 463
Happily this week, we did not talk about NFTs, and I don’t think that we even said “token” a single time. Instead, Mary Ann and Natasha and Alex got back to what we might consider the roots of Equity. Here’s what we got into: We started with a look at the recent Fertilis round. Fertilis is an Australian startup working to make the IVF process more reliable. We are big fans of the concept, though the startup has lots of work ahead of it before it moves the needle for couples hoping to conceive. M...
Jan 14, 2022•26 min•Ep. 462
This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single topic and dive deep. This week Natasha and Mary Ann and Alex came together to talk about the changing nature of due diligence in the startup market. The chat was loosely centered around a piece that the three of us wrote as 2021 was coming to a close, but the conversation quickly broadened to include a host of factors that are impacting how startups fundraise, and build today. Mary Ann talked about the power of FOMO, and how that partic...
Jan 12, 2022•25 min•Ep. 461
This is our Monday show, our short ramp into the week. Yes, it's Monday again. No, you can't stay in bed. Things are already happening! Take-Two is buying Zynga: In a cash and stock deal worth around $12.7 billion (enterprise value), the transaction has delighted Zynga shareholders and bummed out Take-Two's own. Paytm is taking shots, as other 2021 IPOs slim down. The macro environment that startups exist in is about to change for the first time, from a monetary perspective. Pine Labs is looking...
Jan 10, 2022•9 min•Ep. 460
We're getting back up to full speed this week, so Mary Ann and Alex along with Grace behind the scenes took on our Friday show. Next week Natasha and Chris are back, and we'll do our regular three-show lineup. Today, however, despite a smaller team we had just as much as always go chew through: OpenSea's epic new fundraise: Alex did a little Fun Math on the company's trading volume and possible revenue totals. The gist is that OpenSea is a big business. But with NFTs as volatile as they are, cha...
Jan 07, 2022•30 min•Ep. 459
It's the new year! Yes, welcome to 2022 from the Equity team. We hope that our holiday episodes kept you entertained, and warm. But it's now back to work, so let's get into the news: Global stocks are generally higher today, while cryptos are mostly flat. In the last week, major cryptocurrencies have lost value. Twitter banned Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene for "repeated violations of [its] COVID-19 misinformation policy." India is investigating Apple's payment system for iOS. Tesla Q4 deliveries c...
Jan 03, 2022•10 min•Ep. 458
