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 ...
Dec 27, 2022•59 min•Ep. 615
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 ...
Dec 23, 2022•55 min•Ep. 614
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 d...
Dec 21, 2022•38 min•Ep. 613
Darrell talked with Tim De Chant about his coverage of fusion energy and what feels like a rare hopeful story in renewable energy tech. And Jacquelyn Melinek walks us through Sam Bankman-Fried’s alleged crimes and confirmed arrest. Plus he goes over the top stories in tech from the week. And as always, Darrell breaks down the biggest stories in tech. Articles from the episode: World-record fusion experiment produced even more energy than expected FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has been arrested i...
Dec 19, 2022•28 min•Ep. 612
To end the year, we are bringing back our predictions episode with the entire Equity crew: Alex , Natasha , Mary Ann , Theresa , Maggie , and Becca . Grace couldn't make the mic but we have a feeling she'd agree with at least 2% of our predictions, anyways. Let's not ruin the episode, but to give you a taste, here's what topics we based our predictions on: Startup building and culture trends M&A and the return of secondaries The future of media and how social will shift Deep tech and generat...
Dec 16, 2022•35 min•Ep. 611
This week, Natasha is bringing one of her favorite panels from Disrupt to your ears. She sat down with Clubhouse co-founder and CEO, Paul Davison, to talk about the core of Clubhouse, competition, and the impact of hype. The conversation touches on the company's hyper growth, celebrity power, and navigating social platforms and social patterns, with a round of questions from the audience at the end. If you love the conversation, share it with a friend. And if you want more on Clubhouse, Natasha ...
Dec 14, 2022•30 min•Ep. 610
Hey, Equity family! While we're off preparing more end-of-year special episodes for you, we wanted to share an episode from our sister pod: The TechCrunch Podcast. This week Darrell Etherington talks with Taylor Hatmaker on to talk about Lensa AI and the possible ramifications for artists. Then we’ll hear from some attendees at the TC sessions: Space event And as always, Darrell breaks down the biggest stories in tech. Articles from the episode: Lensa AI, the app making ‘magic avatars,’ raises r...
Dec 12, 2022•32 min•Ep. 609
We are nearly at the end of the year, so your friendly, local podcast crew is trying to make sense of just what happened in 2022. We started the year on a venture capital high which quickly turned into a downturn. Startups kicked off the year hiring and wrapped the year shedding staff. The stock market kept going down. A crypto winter kicked off. We saw some PE deals but very few IPOs. And the world saw a bit more geopolitical upheaval than we might have anticipated. There were elections and shu...
Dec 09, 2022•36 min•Ep. 608
This week, Natasha chatted with Alex about ego, how recent news from Sam Bankman-Fried and Elizabeth Holmes gives us a window into how it works, and impacts on the tech and venture landscape. We talked about: What Holmes and Bankman-Fried have in common, from centralized ownership to a cult of personality The differences between the two entrepreneurs, and why their stories tend to blur together How Adam Neumann, Elon Musk and others fit into the conversation Learning lessons from startups from a...
Dec 07, 2022•34 min•Ep. 607
Stocks in China are ripping higher on news that its drastic COVID-related policies could be starting to ease . It's a long way from a reopening, but after years of hard-edged lockdowns, Chinese tech companies are breathing a sigh of relief — at least in valuation terms. Shares are down in Europe and the United States. How much are Chinese equities rallying? Bilibili is in the lead, up around 16% in pre-market trading. The day's gains won't cover all prior losses, but for the nation's beleaguered...
Dec 05, 2022•8 min•Ep. 606
For the last time in 2022, the whole Friday gang got together to chat through the latest and greatest in the world of technology and startup news: ResortPass raises money. Mary Ann explains the business model. Post.News raises money. Alex digs into what he likes and doesn't like about the new Twitter competitor. SBF wants you to know he had no idea what was going on . We are not so sure . Venture red flags are great in hindsight , but would have been more useful last year. Layoffs at DoorDash an...
Dec 02, 2022•34 min•Ep. 605
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 Vijay Chattha , a startup comms leader who has spent over 20 years in the storytelling world. Chattha is the CEO and founder of VSC and founding partner of VSC Ventures, a $21 million investment vehicle to back startups...
Nov 30, 2022•36 min•Ep. 604
It's me! Hi! (I'm not the problem, just the podcast's host, here to bring you the latest greatest in startup and tech news this fine Monday morning). Welcome back to Equity , the podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. And for those of you who hummed the first sentence of this post, extra points to you. I'm starting things off this week as a test run before Alex heads on paternity leave. We have lots to get to, so shake off the holiday...
Nov 28, 2022•8 min•Ep. 603
Hello and welcome back to Equity , a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. While the Equity crew unwinds from Thanksgiving here in the U.S., we're bringing you one of our favorite conversations from this year: Natasha , along with Alex 's help, asked: Who should be raising Party Rounds? The episode was inspired by Natasha’s recent Startups Weekly column, “When the party has confetti but no allergen-friendly appetizers" and the compan...
Nov 25, 2022•29 min•Ep. 602
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 Karla Monterroso, a long time leadership coach, racial equity advocate and the founder of Brava Leaders. We talked about her route into the leadership coaching space, but mainly sought to answer questions about the chal...
Nov 23, 2022•32 min•Ep. 601
Hello, and welcome back to Equity , the podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. Note: Equity will be back on Wednesday, and Friday in some capacity. But keep in mind that this is a holiday week in the United States, so things are going to be a little bit slower than usual. Here’s what we got into on our Monday episode, a weekly kickstart to your week! Stocks are largely down around the world, and crypto prices continue to deflate. Watc...
Nov 21, 2022•9 min•Ep. 600
Hello and welcome back to Equity , a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. This week, Alex and Natasha discussed the latest and greatest of this consuming news cycle. Our goal with the episode, as always, is to go beyond what you may see in a 140 character-take on [insert big story here]. And in today's recording? That wasn't hard at all. We started with our good news segment: 1) Maven, now valued at $1.35 billion, is answering a cou...
Nov 18, 2022•34 min•Ep. 599
Hello and welcome back to Equity , TechCrunch's venture capital focused podcast where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. Today we have something a bit different for you. In light of the never-ending Musk-Twitter saga, and news that the new social media CEO had cut its corporate communications staff to the bone -- and then some. So to get more perspective on the role that a corporate comms team plays in both startups and public companies alike, we wrangled two folks who have j...
Nov 17, 2022•31 min•Ep. 598
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 sag...
Nov 14, 2022•8 min•Ep. 597
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 cut...
Nov 11, 2022•38 min•Ep. 596
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 ...
Nov 09, 2022•34 min•Ep. 595
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 ...
Nov 07, 2022•8 min•Ep. 594
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 materi...
Nov 04, 2022•36 min•Ep. 593
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...
Nov 02, 2022•30 min•Ep. 592
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! E...
Oct 31, 2022•34 min•Ep. 590
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, Twi...
Oct 31, 2022•10 min•Ep. 591
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 H...
Oct 28, 2022•35 min•Ep. 589
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...
Oct 26, 2022•29 min•Ep. 588
Hello and welcome back to Equity , a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. We are back from Disrupt, which means we're picking up the pieces of our work lives, getting back on track. Equity is now on its regular schedule, which is good. A big thanks to the entire podcast production crew for making last week happen. Now! What did we get into this morning? The following: Stocks rallied around the world, but fell in China. Chinese equit...
Oct 24, 2022•10 min•Ep. 587
Hello and welcome back to Equity , a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. While the crew recovers from an incredible week in SF for TechCrunch Disrupt, we dug through the archives for a conversation you may have missed. Natasha was joined by TC+ reporter Rebecca Szkutak to wade through the news of the week. It was frantic, it was full, and forgettable it was not! Here's what we got into: Quick note from Becca on Neumann's return and...
Oct 21, 2022•31 min•Ep. 586
