AI is entering a new phase where access to top talent is becoming as important as, if not more important than, compute or data. The market for AI researchers is so overheated, it’s starting to look a lot like pro sports — complete with outsized contracts and unprecedented infrastructure needs. On today’s episode of Equity , Rebecca Bellan chatted with Deedy Das , principal at Menlo Ventures. Das has seen this shift from multiple angles, first as an engineer and product leader at Google, Facebook...
Jul 23, 2025•28 min
OpenAI’s former chief technology officer, Mira Murati, just raised one of the largest seed rounds in history . Murati secured $2 billion in that seed round for Thinking Machines Lab — a startup so early, it hasn’t even revealed what it’s working on yet. The move is raising eyebrows across Silicon Valley, and it’s only the latest in a wave of top researchers splintering off from OpenAI to chase their own AI moonshots . Today, on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Rebecca Bellan a...
Jul 19, 2025•31 min
Hugging Face’s new AI robot, the Reachy Mini , has already racked up $1 million in sales just five days after launch. But the company isn’t trying to build a chore-doing humanoid just yet. Instead, Hugging Face sees the Reachy Mini as a hackable, desk-friendly device that's part entertainment, part entry point for developers and consumers to experiment with AI in physical form. On this episode of Equity, co-founder Thomas Wolf joins to explain why open-source AI needs hardware, how Hugging Face ...
Jul 16, 2025•28 min
Hugging Face just launched Reachy Mini , an open source AI robot with big googly eyes and not much utility, and that’s kind of the charm. On this episode of Equity Kirsten Korosec, Max Zeff, and Anthony Ha break down the bot's debut, why it’s giving Seinfeld energy, and what it says about the future of open source hardware. Listen to the full episode to hear more news from the week, including: Grok’s wild week and Linda Yaccarino’s abrupt exit from X How Rivian’s micromobility spinoff, Also, sna...
Jul 11, 2025•31 min
“SaaS is going away,” says Dave Park, co-founder and CEO of Narada AI . The company is betting on a future where AI agents, not humans, navigate enterprise software on our behalf. Today on Equity , Park joins Rebecca Bellan on Equity to talk about the rise of agentic AI, what it actually is, how it differs from traditional automation, and what real-world changes enterprises need to make to deploy it at scale. The timing for the conversation is ripe: YC’s most recent batch included 70+ agentic st...
Jul 09, 2025•25 min
Cloudflare wants AI companies to pay up . The cloud infrastructure provider is launching a new experiment called Pay per Crawl that would let publishers charge AI firms every time their bots scrape a site, and it could reshape how content is accessed and monetized online. Today on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec and Max Zeff dig into Cloudflare’s big swing, why it’s a natural next step after a year of laying groundwork for bot-blocking tools, and whether the plan to sit at the...
Jul 03, 2025•30 min
As the interest in both space and solar grows, one startup aims to merge the two industries. By tapping into the momentum of the commercial space industry and the increasing demand for renewable energy, Robinhood co-founder Baiju Bhatt is on a mission to make space-based solar power a reality with his latest startup: Aetherflux . Today on Equity , Rebecca Bellan caught up with Bhatt to talk about his transition from fintech to deep tech and why he believes now is the right time to scatter solar ...
Jul 02, 2025•25 min
This week, two major AI companies scored early wins in court, with federal judges siding with Meta and Anthropic in separate lawsuits over how their models were trained on copyrighted material. The decisions represent the first real legal validation of AI companies’ argument that training models on books, images, and other creative works can be considered “fair use” — even if those materials weren’t obtained with permission. It’s a big deal for companies building generative AI, and a potential t...
Jun 27, 2025•36 min
Cow burps are a climate problem, and one startup wants to reprogram them . Hoofprint Biome is using enzymes to rewire the cow’s microbiome from the inside out, cutting methane production and improving feed efficiency along the way. The company just raised a $15 million Series A round from investors including Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, and they’re just getting started. Today on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Tim De Chant sat down with Kathryn Polkoff, co-founder and CEO of Hoofprint Biome , to t...
Jun 25, 2025•22 min
OpenAI recently announced a $200 million deal with the U.S. Department of Defense , which has us wondering: Could this further strain the company’s relationship with its biggest backer, Microsoft? After all, there have been numerous reports about growing tensions between the two companies, particularly as they become more competitive over enterprise deals . Today, on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Anthony Ha and Max Zeff discuss how the OpenAI/DoD deal reflects Silicon Valley’s increasingly ...
Jun 20, 2025•42 min
AI investments hit $110 billion in 2024 , and the funding landscape in 2025 is more competitive than ever. For early-stage startups, that means more money in the market but also more pressure to stand out. At TechCrunch Sessions: AI, Rebecca Bellan sat down with three experienced investors: Jill Chase, Partner at CapitalG; Kanu Gulati, Partner at Khosla Ventures; and Sara Ittelson, Partner at Accel. They broke down what they are really looking for when evaluating AI startups from seed through Se...
Jun 19, 2025•26 min
Meta just made a $14.3 billion bet on data-labeling company Scale AI , but it’s not a traditional takeover: Meta’s taking a 49% stake in the company and adding Scale’s co-founder Alexandr Wang to its team. Today on Equity, we break down what this means for Meta’s AI ambitions and revisit Wang’s early AI predictions. Listen to the full episode to hear more highlights from the week, including: How Chime’s IPO priced above expectations at $27 per share and jumped in early trading, and Anthony’s not...
Jun 13, 2025•32 min
Generative AI is reshaping the way people work, from full-time employees to freelancers. As coding copilots, design assistants, and AI-powered writing tools become more capable and accessible, creative and technical roles are starting to shift – if not become eliminated entirely. The pressure to adapt is growing across the board. Micha Kaufman, CEO of Fiverr, isn’t sugarcoating it. In a recent open letter to staff , he warned that AI is coming for everyone’s jobs, and the only way to stay releva...
Jun 11, 2025•27 min
Instead of our usual Friday news rundown, we’re bringing you a conversation from this week’s TC Sessions: AI event out in San Francisco. Our friend and co-host Max Zeff sat down with Jared Kaplan, Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer at Anthropic. If you’ve been following Anthropic, you’ll know it’s been a busy year for the AI startup. Back in March, the company announced it raised $3.5 billion at a $61.5 billion valuation in a round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. Since then, it’s launched ...
Jun 06, 2025•30 min
Today on Equity, Rebecca Bellan sits down with Crowdstrike co-founder and former CTO, Dmitri Alperovitch, to talk about the evolving cybersecurity landscape, the role of startups, and why he says we’re living in a World on the Brink . Listen to the full episode to hear about: What early-stage secure-by-design startup founders are missing when it comes to maintaining security while building quickly and crisis management. How AI export controls and global rivalries are reshaping innovation. What i...
Jun 04, 2025•30 min
Elon Musk has officially announced he’s stepping down as a U.S. special government employee and the de facto head of the Department of Government Efficiency, better known as DOGE. The move follows Musk’s cooling relationship with the Trump administration and slumping Tesla sales tied to his political advocacy. Today on Equity , Kirsten, Max and Anthony unpack who else is departing DOGE, and why Silicon Valley’s relationship with politics is entering, as Kirsten put it, the “find out” stage. List...
May 30, 2025•30 min
Today on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan caught up with Daniel Weiner , director of the Brennan Center’s Elections and Government Program, to break down what this means for startups, innovation, and democracy. Listen to the full episode to hear more about: How SpaceX, Palantir, and Anduril leveraged insider networks to win major defense deals. Changing ethics safeguards, and why that matters for founders entering government spaces. What this all means for fair competition and startup...
May 28, 2025•25 min
OpenAI just made its biggest acquisition yet , scooping up Jony Ive and Sam Altman’s secretive device startup, io, in a $6.5 billion all-equity deal. Ive, the legendary designer behind the iPhone and other iconic Apple products, will now lead creative and design work at OpenAI through his firm LoveFrom. The goal? To take AI “beyond the screen” and build a new generation of AI-powered consumer devices. Beyond the tech, there’s a clear narrative play here. OpenAI is framing Altman as the Jobs-esqu...
May 23, 2025•33 min
Today on Equity , Rebecca Bellan caught up with Ali Kashani , co-founder and CEO of Serve Robotics , to unpack how Serve is navigating public markets, scaling real-world robotics, and building what it hopes is the future of last-mile delivery. Listen to the full episode to hear more about: How Serve went from a lidar-focused startup to a publicly traded company via reverse merger in 2023 What it takes to scale a delivery fleet across cities like L.A., Miami, and Dallas Why Kashani says Serve’s s...
May 21, 2025•31 min
Databricks just snatched up another AI company . This week, data analytics giant announced a $1 billion acquisition of Neon, a startup building an open-source alternative to AWS Aurora Postgres. It’s the latest in a spree of high-profile buys, joining MosaicML and Tabular , as Databricks positions itself as the place to build, deploy, and scale AI-native applications. Today, on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Max Zeff, and Anthony Ha unpack the Databricks–Neon deal, where Neo...
May 16, 2025•24 min
Despite courtroom chaos, Rippling is still going full steam ahead. The HR tech startup at the center of an increasingly dramatic legal battle with rival Deel just raised a fresh $450 million in funding at a $16.8 billion valuation, and launched a new “Startup Stack” to woo early-stage companies—winning over Y Combinator as both an investor and a client. The funding lands amid the company’s high-profile legal fight with Deel , which Rippling accuses of movie-worthy corporate espionage, complete w...
May 14, 2025•23 min
At Stripe’s Sessions conference this week, Mark Zuckerberg pitched what he calls the “ ultimate business machine ”: a fully automated, end-to-end AI ad engine promising to replace agencies, creatives, and media buyers. You just need to connect your bank account first. Zuckerberg claims this could be one of the most valuable AI systems ever built, generating thousands of image ads and testing them in real time, but it raises a bigger question: is this the future of advertising, or just another wa...
May 09, 2025•31 min
Today, we're bringing you an episode of our sister podcast, StrictlyVC Download . StrictlyVC's Alex Gove caught up with Eric Slesinger from 201 Ventures , a venture capital firm focused on seed-stage defense tech startups in Europe. They discuss Eric's journey from CIA to investor and how he recognized the untapped potential in European defense tech while others were dismissive, and how he's working to overcome the cultural taboo that once made defense investments "bad manners" in European VC ci...
May 07, 2025•30 min
What if cheating was just…the future of work? That’s the pitch behind Cluely , the viral AI startup that claims its stealthy browser overlay is “undetectable” and can help users bluff their way through everything from job interviews to exams. The company has raised $5.3 million and sparked a wave of backlash from startups building tools to catch cheaters . Cluely’s response? They’ll just build smart glasses or brain chips. Today, on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Max Zeff an...
May 02, 2025•29 min
Retail investors are increasingly shaping the secondary market. In Q4 2024, platforms like EquityZen reported that 86% of total transaction volume came from retail participants—an eye-catching shift as tools like Forge and EquityZen promise broader access to private shares. But does more access mean more opportunity, or more risk? Today on Equity , Rebecca Bellan is joined by Jared Carmel of Manhattan Venture Partners to dig into what he calls a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” in secondaries,...
Apr 30, 2025•25 min
Today on Equity , we're digging into the week’s headlines, from browsers and search to AI and social, and why Google and Meta's antitrust cases have us wondering if they’re really breaking up monopolies or just passing the baton to the next dominant player. Listen to the full episode to hear about: Tesla’s massive 71% profit drop and how Elon Musk is doubling down on Tesla and AI How Mati Carbon took home the grand prize from this year’s Xprize Carbon Removal competition Vibe coding, Cursor, and...
Apr 25, 2025•32 min
Trump’s tariffs have upended global trade and created an environment of uncertainty. But this situation wasn’t created in a vacuum. The rules of business have been shifting for years as technology moves quicker than regulation, geopolitics descend into turmoil, and the law erodes and becomes weaponized. Businesses might be asking themselves, how are they meant to keep their heads above water? And what can they do to fight back? Hence AI co-founder Sean West has some answers. With a team spread a...
Apr 23, 2025•28 min
Today, on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Max Zeff and Anthony Ha are unpacking the week’s news, including the possible return of the SPAC in an uncertain IPO market. It’s a curious moment for a public debut, as Kirsten points out, especially after so much chatter that 2025 would be the big comeback year for blockbuster IPOs, but some major players like Klarna and StubHub have already hit pause. And as investor Mark Goldberg put it on this week’s show, folks holding their bre...
Apr 18, 2025•29 min
After nearly a decade at Index Ventures, where he backed standout fintech companies like Plaid, Persona, Lithic, and Pilot, Mark Goldberg left to launch Chemistry , an early-stage venture firm. Founded alongside Kristina Shen and Ethan Kurzweil, the $350 million fund is part of a growing trend in venture capital: seasoned investors breaking out from large platforms to build more focused, boutique outfits. Today on Equity , Mary Ann Azevedo caught up with Goldberg about what led him to make the m...
Apr 16, 2025•28 min
Meta dropped three new models over the weekend: Scout, Maverick, and the still-training Behemoth, billed as the next evolution of “open-ish” AI. But instead of excitement, the response was mostly shrugs. Critics called the release underwhelming, saying it lacked the edge expected in today’s breakneck AI race. Meta’s clear attempt to claw back some attention quickly turned messy. Accusations began circulating on X and Reddit around benchmark tampering, a mystery ex-employee, and large gaps betwee...
Apr 11, 2025•33 min
