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1d ago

Why Jensen Huang’s departure could end Nvidia’s gold rush

Nvidia just delivered a shocking announcement — that the chipmaker’s co-founder and longtime CEO Jensen Huang is resigning. While there had been earlier reports of U.S. intelligence concerns over Huang’s “close relationship” with a suspected Chinese spy, the situation seemed to deteriorate quickly over the past week, with Huang admitting to an affair, more personal indiscretions coming to light, and Nvidia ultimately announcing his resignation. On the latest episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Anthony Ha, Rebecca Bellan, and Equity newcomer Tim De Chant discuss what this news will mean for Nvidia and the AI ecosystem. The company appears to have had no succession plan in place, and while chief financial officer Colette Kress is stepping in as interim CEO, it remains to be seen how long she’ll last in the role, and if she’ll match the scale of Huang’s investments in other AI companies. Listen to the full episode to hear us discuss: Whether neo-cloud companies like CoreWeave and Nebius are facing financial reality How much all seven Anthropic founders could be cashing out with the IPO Whether Oura’s acquisition of a healthcare startup can turn things around after a postponed public offering Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Nov 6

How a Blue Wave midterm might reshape the AI industry

Democrats’ historic victories in this week’s U.S. midterm elections could also transform the tech industry. The public voted on 41 data center-related ballot measures on Tuesday — in all but one, the majority voted to impose more restrictions on data center development. And even when data centers weren’t on the ballot directly, they were a major talking point, with newly-elected Democratic governors and congressmembers likely to support additional regulation. On the latest episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Sean O’Kane, and Anthony Ha discuss what the election will mean for the tech industry moving forward — not just when it comes to data centers (which OpenAI is already trying to rebrand), but also increased government scrutiny of Big Tech. Listen to the full episode to hear more about: Whether Google first satellite data center is ushering our orbital data center future If major layoffs at design software company Canva and website builder Squarespace can be blamed on AI Marvell’s $115 billion acquisition of Lumentum, in one of the largest deals in history Why CrowdStrike just acquired of two AI security startups What NBCUniversal’s investment in Indian microdrama startup Elo Elo means for the media landscape Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, and all the casts. You can also follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. Chapters: 00:00 Intro 0:47 Founder Summit recap and an Equity team update 2:23 Midterm results and the data center backlash 7:49 OpenAI rebrands data centers as “compute campuses” 10:57 Wall Street cools on the data center buildout 13:30 Regulatory certainty and building outside the U.S. 15:45 Canva and Squarespace layoffs 20:37 Can AI chatbots replace products like Squarespace? 23:22 Marvell’s $115B Lumentum acquisition 26:51 CrowdStrike buys Fiddler AI and Dreadnode 30:20 Micro drama startup raises $80M 30:59 Outro Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
3d ago

How backlash and red tape continue to slow data centers post-Blue Wave

The data center boom is running into serious real-world obstacles, from widespread local opposition and permitting delays to a scramble for electricity. Before those challenges even come into play, though, there's a more basic problem: A lot of the projects being announced may never get built in the first place. With billions of dollars in AI infrastructure investment at stake, separating realistic projects from speculative ones is becoming increasingly important. On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, hosts Rebecca Bellan and Tim De Chant are joined by Brent Nelson, senior managing director of markets and strategy at Ascend Analytics, to separate the data center projects that are likely to get built from the ones that may never get off the ground. Listen to the full episode to hear about: Why Brent thinks the data center pipeline is wildly inflated, and why only a fraction of the proposed projects will actually get built. What happens to all that AI infrastructure if the bubble bursts, and why the data center developers with the wrong tenants could be in serious trouble. Why Brent thinks Democrats should take their shot at permitting reform now, rather than wait for a more favorable political moment. How energy projects get stuck in a permitting loop, how administrations of both parties have contributed to the problem, and what it would take to get them moving again. Why natural gas isn't necessarily the reliable fallback developers think it is, particularly during extreme winter weather. What a less obvious alternative to gas could look like: pairing battery storage with a grid connection that can be temporarily curtailed during periods of high demand. Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Nov 4

Building on open source AI? Hugging Face’s policy chief on the costs, risks, and trade-offs

Open source models are becoming more mainstream as enterprises, governments and startups alike rely on the promise of lower costs, more control, and more flexibility. But as increasingly capable models become more freely available, how do companies capture value? And with Chinese open models gaining ground, can American players keep up? On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan caught up with Irene Solaiman, Chief Policy Officer and SVP of Strategy at Hugging Face, about what startups need to know before building on open models, from choosing the right tools and infrastructure to navigating the trade-offs shaping the future of open AI. Listen to the full episode to hear about: Why startups, enterprises, and governments are switching to open AI models to cut costs, and when it makes less sense to use the most powerful models. Who makes money when the models are free to use, and whether the companies building them can capture the value they create. Why the U.S. may need deep-pocketed players like Nvidia to build an open frontier model that can compete with China’s, and what’s at stake if Chinese models become the global default. How recent attacks on open AI platforms are raising a difficult question: how do you keep an open ecosystem secure without closing it off? Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Oct 30

Anthropic’s S-1 is here. Does AI pay off?

After weeks of speculation and leaks, Anthropic finally released the S-1 filing for its IPO, showing revenue of $16.3 billion for the first half of 2026, with a net loss of $80.7 billion. At around the same time, former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer sparked a backlash after boasting about using her AI app Dazzle to answer questions about her daughter for a school presentation. On this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Sean O’Kane, and Anthony Ha dig into the long-awaited financial details behind one of the industry’s biggest companies, looking at both the enormous opportunities and the many, many risks. They’re also joined by Amanda Silberling to discuss a more basic question facing the industry: Are AI execs too out-of-touch to build products for normal people? Listen to the full episode to hear more about: What Anthropic’s S-1 reveals about its enterprise strategy Why an Apollo economist said that AI has delivered “zero financial payoff” New funding for Bedrock Robotics, a startup building self-driving excavators Why manufacturing accelerator Re:Build just raised $2.1 billion Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, and all the casts. You can also follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Oct 23

The PHP Armageddon reminds us that the internet is held together by glue and dreams

The internet is having an off week, to say the least. Security researchers at OpenAI and Google-owned Wiz used AI to uncover critical flaws in PHP, the open source language behind roughly 70% of websites, including those built on WordPress, WooCommerce, and Magento. The holes date back more than a decade, and now that a fix is out, companies are scrambling to patch their systems as attackers try to exploit the them. On this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Sean O’Kane, and Anthony Ha dig into why AI-powered bug hunting could make this the first of many internet-wide scares, what Elon Musk’s careful choreography says about where a Tesla-SpaceX merger is headed, and more of the week’s headlines. Listen to the full episode to hear more about: Elon Musk’s pledge to give every kid in America a SpaceX share, announced just hours after Anthropic unveiled its public benefit fund Character.AI’s bankruptcy, Disney’s deal to hire most of its staff, and Anthony’s case for rethinking what “acquihire” means OpenAI’s acquisition of Orchestra Bio and what it says about the company’s “no side quests” strategy Otter’s surprise $320 million raise from General Catalyst’s growth fund Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You can also follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. Chapters: 0:00 – Intro: PHP security crisis, Tesla and SpaceX, and Otter.ai's $320M raise 0:55 – TechCrunch Disrupt recap and the Elizabeth Holmes documentary 2:50 – Critical PHP vulnerabilities threaten millions of websites 8:01 – AI's role in discovering and exploiting cybersecurity flaws 13:09 – The future of AI-powered cybersecurity 17:07 – Are Tesla and SpaceX finally merging? 19:10 – Elon Musk's influence over both companies' boards 22:50 – Why a Tesla-SpaceX merger could make financial sense 25:27 – Musk's plan to give American children SpaceX shares 27:08 – Character.AI's bankruptcy and Disney's involvement 30:21 – OpenAI acquires biotech startup Orchestra Bio 33:00 – Otter.ai raises $320 million from General Catalyst 35:30 – Outro Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Oct 28

The 'Vulnpocalypse' is coming for the internet’s aging code, says Wiz’s CTO

The PHP scare may have faded from your feed, but the cleanup is far from over. Last week, two critical bugs in the open source language behind roughly 70% of websites left organizations scrambling to fix their systems, with some taking sites offline until the vulnerabilities could be patched. According to researchers who found the bugs, this is only the beginning, as AI changes how quickly novel vulnerabilities can be uncovered and exploited. On this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan talks with Tomer Schwartz, CTO of Exposure Management & AppSec at Google-owned Wiz, who was part of the scramble --- alongside OpenAI, research group Calif, and the PHP team --- to fix the bugs. On the show, Schwartz and Bellan get into what the race looked like from the inside, how early-stage startups can build with security in mind, and why patching by hand won’t scale. Listen to the full episode to hear more about: Why Tomer says Wiz couldn’t have found these bugs without AI, and how custom tooling tested dozens of ideas over a weekend. How a bug was able to sit in plain sight for more than a decade, and what changed to make it exploitable. Why leaks are almost baked into coordinated disclosure, and how Wiz planned for it. Who’s still unpatched and whether small business owners running WordPress sites need to worry. Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, and all the casts. You can also follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Mar 11

How Poppi went from a Shark Tank pitch to a $1.95B exit

For years, venture capitalists have been skeptical of beverage startups, citing thin margins and brutal distribution as reasons most brands never break out. But a new wave of “functional soda” companies has been challenging that assumption, including Poppi, the prebiotic soda brand that grew from a kitchen experiment into a $1.95 billion acquisition by PepsiCo. On this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan is joined by Poppi co-founder Allison Ellsworth to talk about building a beverage startup in a venture world dominated by SaaS and AI. From pitching on Shark Tank while nine months pregnant to scaling a digital-first brand during COVID, and now returning as a Shark herself, Ellsworth shares how social media, fast marketing bets, and customer feedback helped turn a niche drink into a category-defining company. Listen to the full episode to hear about: Ellsworth’s Shark Tank return, and how she evaluates founders on the other side of the pitch. How Ellsworth turned a personal health issue into Poppi and built early traction at farmers' markets. Why TikTok and community-driven marketing helped the brand rack up billions of views and loyal fans. The risky decision to buy a last-minute Super Bowl ad, and how the team executed it in days. What it’s like selling a startup to PepsiCo while trying to preserve the brand’s identity. Why beverage startups almost inevitably need acquisition-level distribution to scale. Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Oct 21

Meta and Instinct are racing to build your AI assistant. Wabi has a different idea.

It seems like every big AI player is building a personal agent. Meta has Muse, OpenAI launched Dots, and a startup called Instinct recently raised $1 billion at a $10 billion valuation. But Eugenia Kuyda thinks the next generation of AI assistants needs to do more than book your restaurant reservations and find you hidden money in your Gmail. Kuyda, who founded AI companion app Replika, has just launched Wabi, a personal AI agent that organizes your life into separate conversations, brings other people into the mix, and builds custom apps around what you're trying to do. The idea is to make AI less of a solo productivity tool and more of a way to spend time with the people who matter to you. On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan talks with Kuyda about why she thinks AI agents should bring people together instead of keeping them glued to a single chatbot, how Wabi plans to compete in a crowded and expensive market, and what it takes to get people comfortable giving an AI access to their email. Listen to the full episode to hear more about: Why Kuyda thinks single-threaded AI chats get worse as you use them, and how separate threads improve the user experience. How Wabi is approaching compute costs and monetization while its app is free. Whether phones will remain the primary way people access AI, even as operating systems become more AI-first. What Kuyda looks for when deciding whether an AI startup deserves users' trust. Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You can also follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Nov 5

VC’s Gender Gap is Closing (But Not Fast Enough) with Paige Hendrix Buckner

Women and non-binary investors have doubled their share of partner seats at U.S. venture firms in less than a decade. But a title doesn't always come with power. In this episode of Build Mode, host Isabelle Johannesen sits down with Paige Hendrix Buckner, CEO of All Raise, a national nonprofit helping women and non-binary venture capitalists grow their power and influence. Paige shares how the share of women and non-binary people in partner-plus roles at U.S. VC firms grew from 9% to 18.8%, and why All Raise is now focused on a new measurement. She explains why a partner title doesn't guarantee check-writing authority, board seats, carry, or credit for deals, and how the attribution gap makes it harder for investors to build the track record they need to raise their own funds. They get into: What All Raise does and its strategy of community, data, and "lore" The attribution gap and why credit for deals matters Why sponsorship can make or break an investor's career Why more women are leaving to start their own funds How diverse VC firms change which founders get funded What the $124 trillion wealth transfer could mean for women LPs What good firm building looks like, from LP relationships to brand How AI is helping emerging managers run lean firms The different paths into a venture career Subscribe to Build Mode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen. And watch the full videos on YouTube. New episodes of Build Mode drop every Thursday. Hosted by Isabelle Johannesen. Produced and edited by Maggie Nye. Audience development led by Morgan Little. Special thanks to the Foundry and Cheddar video teams.

TechCrunch podcasts cover the business of technology, startups, venture capital funding, crypto, and the humans behind it all.

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TechCrunch

Top Shows

Why Jensen Huang’s departure could end Nvidia’s gold rush

How a Blue Wave midterm might reshape the AI industry

How backlash and red tape continue to slow data centers post-Blue Wave

Building on open source AI? Hugging Face’s policy chief on the costs, risks, and trade-offs

Anthropic’s S-1 is here. Does AI pay off?

The PHP Armageddon reminds us that the internet is held together by glue and dreams

The 'Vulnpocalypse' is coming for the internet’s aging code, says Wiz’s CTO

How Poppi went from a Shark Tank pitch to a $1.95B exit

Meta and Instinct are racing to build your AI assistant. Wabi has a different idea.

VC’s Gender Gap is Closing (But Not Fast Enough) with Paige Hendrix Buckner

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