Kalshi is the largest prediction market in America, building a unique trading economy around political, sports, and cultural events. While some states view it as an illegal operation requiring gambling licenses, others—including certain courts and members of the Trump administration—see it as a groundbreaking financial opportunity. On this episode of Equity , Max Zeff sits down with Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour at the latest StrictlyVC event in San Francisco. Mansour shares why he sees Kalshi as a g...
Apr 09, 2025•19 min
Rippling’s latest lawsuit reads less like a legal filing and more like the plot of a corporate espionage thriller, complete with secret crypto payments, an alleged mole, and a fake Slack channel trap. This week, the HR tech startup publicly named the employee at the center of its case against its rival Deel, claiming the company paid him thousands to spy from the inside. Deel, however, is not staying quiet. The company is denying the claims, calling it a dramatic distraction from Rippling’s own ...
Apr 04, 2025•26 min
Six years ago, while researching for a college entrepreneurship competition, Valentina Agudelo identified a troubling gap in breast cancer survival rates between Latin America and the developed world, with women in her native Colombia and the rest of the continent dying at higher rates due to late detection. Today, Agudelo is the co-founder and CEO of Salva Health , and recently took home the top prize at TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield . On the latest episode of Equity , she joins Rebecca Bell...
Apr 02, 2025•24 min
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Mar 28, 2025•28 min
According to Bradley Tusk, co-founder and managing partner of Tusk Venture Partners , venture capital has been “effectively dead for the last four years." A self-proclaimed “ Fixer ,” Tusk recently made the decision not to raise a fourth fund. Instead, he decided to go back to his roots and launch an equity-for-services firm aimed at helping early stage startups navigate tech policy and regulation. Today on Equity , Rebecca Bellan sat down with Tusk to explore his pivot from traditional VC to eq...
Mar 26, 2025•35 min
It was on, then off, and welp, now it's on again — and this time for a lot more money. Yep, the Equity podcast dug into Google's $32 billion acquisition of cloud security startup Wiz. There was a lot to unpack: the why, the how, what it means. And of course, there was the "who wins" part. Sequoia is takes home the VC prize for total payout. But another plucky VC out of Israel called Cyberstarts had the largest percentage win. Tune in to find out just how much, plus the crew's other insights on t...
Mar 21, 2025•26 min
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Mar 19, 2025•30 min
This week, OpenAI inked a five-year, $11.9 billion deal with CoreWeave , the GPU-heavy cloud provider, securing its own AI computing pipeline—and a $350 million equity stake in the company. With CoreWeave’s pending IPO and deep ties to Microsoft, OpenAI’s deal marks a significant shift in the AI cloud wars. Today, on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Max Zeff, Anthony Ha, and Rebecca Bellan are diving into whether or not the deal is a power move against Microsoft or just an ine...
Mar 14, 2025•30 min
Today on Equity , we’re taking you to Austin, Texas, for South by Southwest, where Rebecca Bellan caught up with Dara Treseder, Chief Marketing Officer at Autodesk, and Mayor Matt Mahan of San Jose, to discuss how technology is transforming urban spaces and building the cities of the future. The panel dug into how cities today are using AI to improve traffic and safety, why digital twins can help make cities more resilient to climate disasters, and how cities can integrate data centers into the ...
Mar 13, 2025•36 min
California’s most controversial AI safety bill of 2024 might be dead, but its author isn't backing down . State Senator Scott Weiner is back with SB 53, a new AI bill that strips away the most debated parts of last year’s failed legislation while keeping key whistleblower protections and a public cloud computing initiative called CalCompute. With the AI industry and even the federal government shifting away from AI safety regulation in favor of innovation, will the bill gain any traction? Today,...
Mar 07, 2025•29 min
Today on Equity , Julie Bort sits down with Ryan Hinkle a Managing Director at Insight Partners, the giant New York-based venture capital firm that invests in tech worldwide. It has $90 billion in assets under management and just raised a new $12.5 billion fund. The pair unpack the evolving landscape of startup ecosystems. They talk about the post-pandemic shift that saw many founders moving to cities like New York or Miami only for the rise of OpenAI and Cerebral Valley and the accompanying AI ...
Mar 05, 2025•28 min
Today, on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Max Zeff and Anthony Ha are breaking down the week’s biggest stories, including the Optifye.ai controversy, the wider concerns about AI in labor, and why this demo could be a glimpse of what's coming next. Listen to the full episode to hear about: Amazon’s Alexa unveiling this week in NYC, and why an AI-enabeled Alexa+ could make the competition sweat Why the departure of Lucid Motors' CEO Peter Rawlinson is raising concerns about the...
Feb 28, 2025•28 min
Today on Equity , Mary Ann Azevedo sits down with Eylul Kayin , a partner at Gradient Ventures, to dive into the evolving AI startup landscape. The pair dig into what makes a successful AI startup, the importance of quality product offerings, and the fast-moving nature of AI innovation. Listen to the full episode to hear more about: Key challenges founders face, from building strong customer relationships to navigating technical hurdles. Gradient Ventures’ approach to funding and supporting AI s...
Feb 26, 2025•27 min
Humane’s AI Pin , which promised to replace your smartphone with a sleek wearable device, is officially dead. After a rocky launch, negative reviews, and returns outpacing sales, the startup is shutting down and selling its assets to HP for $116 million – less than half of what it raised. But what’s next for Humane’s tech? On today's episode of Equity , hosts Kirsten Korosec, Max Zeff and Anthony Ha are breaking down the week’s tech and startup headlines, including what HP might do with Humane’s...
Feb 21, 2025•29 min
Last week, the team at early-stage VC firm Slow Ventures launched its new $60 million fund entirely focused on investing in content creators.Today on Equity , Rebecca Bellan sits down with Lightcap to dive into YouTube remains the dominant platform for serious creators,how niche community trust translates into scalable businesses, and what this new fund means for the creator economy. Listen to the full episode to hear more about: How this new asset class has the potential to scale. The firm’s su...
Feb 19, 2025•23 min
Tensions are running high in the AI world this week after Elon Musk made a staggering $97.4 billion bid to buy OpenAI , a move that would mark one of the largest tech acquisitions in history – if it actually happens. Sam Altman shut the notion down fast, even going so far as to fire back with a post suggesting he’d buy X for a tenth of the price. But Musk’s bid itself does raise questions about potential roadblocks ahead for OpenAI. Today, on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, M...
Feb 14, 2025•31 min
“The fintech market is hot again,” said Sheel Mohnot, fintech investor and founder of Better Tomorrow Ventures (BTV). “And we are going to see some more exits in the near future.” According to recent reports , fintech funding is on the rise, with global investment hitting $60 billion in the first half of the year alone, marking a significant rebound from the previous year’s dip. Mohnot – whose X account you’ve likely come across if you follow fintech – has invested in over 100 deals throughout t...
Feb 12, 2025•30 min
Humanoid robotics company Figure raised eyebrows this week when it announced it would be stepping away from a partnership with OpenAI in favor of building its own in-house AI models. Figure CEO Brett Adcock alluded to a “major breakthrough” in their own process and plans to unveil “something no one has ever seen on a humanoid” in the coming month. Figure isn’t the only company experimenting with non-OpenAI solutions either. Just last week, researchers from Stanford and the University of Washingt...
Feb 07, 2025•29 min
Today, we’re bringing you a bonus episode zeroing in on DeepSeek , the Chinese AI lab that’s recently taken over the news and the app stores , beating out OpenAI's ChatGPT. Max Zeff is talking about it all with Ion Stoica , Professor of Computer Science Division at UC Berkeley and the cofounder and executive chairman of software startup Databricks. Listen to the full episode to hear more about: Why Stoica believes the future of AI lies in "doubling down on open source." Microsoft's decision to h...
Feb 01, 2025•26 min
DeepSeek, DeepSeek, DeepSeek . We couldn’t escape the headlines around the Chinese AI lab this week. The startup -- which claims to have built its models more efficiently and at a fraction of the cost of competitors -- lit a fire under Silicon Valley after releasing its R1 “reasoning” model and displacing ChatGPT as the App Store’s top app. Today, on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Margaux MacColl and Max Zeff are digging into the latest news, including the reactions from bot...
Jan 31, 2025•29 min
You might have noticed in your time online that a lot of the services and the websites that you’re using are kind of getting…worse. The good news, though, is that this means that there are different sectors that are ripe for disruption. On today’s episode of Equity , Rebecca's joined by Ed Zitron —CEO of EZPR, host of the Better Offline podcast, and author of Why Everything Stopped Working —to dig into why this shift is happening and what it means for startups. Listen to the full episode to hear...
Jan 29, 2025•37 min
Today, on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Margaux MacColl and Anthony Ha are digging into the latest tech and startup news from inauguration week in the U.S., including the new administration’s approach to startups and the potential transparency challenges that come with it. Listen to the full episode to hear about: TikTok’s rapid return and which apps are waiting in the wings – just in case. What is Stargate, and why are OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle and others committing $100 bi...
Jan 24, 2025•33 min
Today on Equity , Julie Bort sits down with Crunchbase News’ Senior Data Editor, Gené Teare, to dive deeper into the year’s slight growth in investment , which reached $314 billion, up from $304 billion in 2023. The pair explores how AI became a dominant force in the landscape. As Teare puts it, “Tech rides on bubbles. What bubbles tell you is that if everyone's putting dollars into a certain sector, it means there are very big outcomes coming.” Listen to the full episode to hear more about: The...
Jan 22, 2025•26 min
The clock is set to run out on TikTok over the weekend, following the Supreme Court’s ruling to uphold the ban . So, what’s next for the video-sharing app’s 170 million U.S. users? On today’s episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Margaux MacColl and Anthony Ha dive into the week’s biggest stories, including where all the ‘TikTok refugees’ are heading. Many are flocking to Chinese apps like RedNote and Lemon8 , with some even turning to Duolingo to brush up on their Manda...
Jan 17, 2025•33 min
Last week, Meta announced changes to its content moderation policy, including the removal of third-party fact-checking across its apps in favor of a crowdsourced community notes feature, similar to X. Today on Equity , Rebecca Bellan caught up with Eugen Rochko, CEO of Mastodon, to explore what these changes mean for users and how decentralized social media platforms like Mastodon could offer a viable alternative to mainstream giants like Meta. Listen to the full episode to hear more about: Mast...
Jan 15, 2025•28 min
As CES 2025 comes to a close, TechCrunch’s Equity podcast hosts Kirsten Korosec, Margaux MacColl, Anthony Ha, and Max Zeff are back on the mic to discuss the week's top news, the tech that caught their eye, and the companies still figuring out AI . Listen to the full episode to hear: What's driving Meta's push for “more speech, fewer mistakes” as it ends its third-party fact-checking program . Livestream shopping app Whatnot's $265M raise , and which companies could be capitalizing on livestream...
Jan 10, 2025•36 min
Today on Equity , we're taking you on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt for Kirsten Korosec's conversation with Zoox co-founder and CEO Jesse Levinson. The pair discuss building custom robotaxis, how Zoox's approach compares to that of Tesla, and the 'current and future landscape' of AI on wheels. It's also worth noting that Amazon-owned Zoox recently scooped up some of Tesla’s top talent , bringing on Zheng Gao late last month to lead hardware engineering. Equity will be back on Friday with a full CE...
Jan 08, 2025•26 min
Instead of our usual Friday news rundown, we’re bringing you a conversation about what Yahoo Finance dubbed the “ comeback stock of the year ” - Robinhood. TechCrunch Editor in Chief and General Manager Connie Loizos chatted with Robinhood’s CEO and co-founder, Vlad Tenev , about the company’s evolution. Listen to the full episode to hear more about: Why Tenev believes the company is poised for significant growth. Robinhood's approach to prediction markets, sports betting, and wealth management....
Jan 03, 2025•41 min
Happy new year, Equity listeners! At the end of 2024, all eyes were on Bluesky's rapid growth . According to the social platform’s CEO Jay Graber, however, their goal is not just to recreate Twitter. Today, Rebecca is handing the reins over to TechCrunch senior reporter Max Zeff , who sat down with Graber at our last StrictlyVC event. Listen to the full episode to hear pair dig into the company’s success and why, according to Graber, people need to, “be able to control the social networks they c...
Jan 02, 2025•22 min
From AI advancements and CrowdStrike's crash to WordPress drama and which startups VCs have their eyes on next, TechCrunch’s Equity podcast is saying goodbye to 2024 with a look back at the year's biggest stories in tech. Listen to the full episode to hear hosts Kirsten Korosec, Margaux MacColl, Devin Coldewey and Anthony Ha dig into: 2024 in a headline. We asked, and you answered ! Where did all the venture funding go? In a year of massive turnover, Margaux reminded us of which VCs are playing ...
Dec 27, 2024•30 min
