TechCrunch

•

チャンネル • 2個の番組

起業

起業

アップデート：毎週
テクノロジー

テクノロジー

アップデート：毎週

10月9日

Amazon drops data center NDAs, and AI agents want your credit card

Amazon says it will stop using NDAs when negotiating data center deals with local governments, following a similar move from Microsoft earlier this year. Secrecy has fueled community backlash against AI infrastructure, with opposition leading to hundreds of proposed and enacted moratoriums from New York to San Francisco. Meanwhile, a wave of startups is betting that consumers will hand AI agents access to their inboxes, files, and credit cards — if they can get websites to let them in. On this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Anthony Ha, Sean O’Kane, and Rebecca Bellan dig into whether ditching NDAs will change how data center deals get done, why trust may be the real product for personal AI startups, plus a couple of deals of the week. Listen to the full episode to hear more about: The White House’s plans to make plans with its new Super Intelligence Force Ghost’s $3,499 computer built to run AI agents around the clock, and why the Equity crew doesn’t see it going mass market Tab, Underdog, and Hark pitching privacy as their product, plus the business model that could turn your agent into a salesperson United, Apple, and Amazon putting up walls against outside agents Lambda’s reported $4 billion raise, and the single customer behind $35 billion of its backlog Uber’s $2.3 billion all-cash deal to get into the office catering space with ezCater We’ll see you next week at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026! Get 25% off your tickets with code Equity25, and we’ll see you on the Builders Stage Tuesday at 9 am. 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 0:55 Trump’s “superintelligence force” and the great AI rebranding 3:19 Amazon drops NDAs on data center deals 9:17 Why the AI industry has a communication problem 12:51 Personal AI agents: finding money in your inbox 15:27 Ghost’s $3,500 computer built for personal AI 19:16 Trust is the product: privacy-first agent startups 27:36 Lambda’s $4B raise and the neo cloud backlog problem 31:22 Uber’s $2.3B move into catering 35:10 Outro Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2日前

Who’s the sheriff in AI’s wild west? (Equity Live at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026)

The Equity crew was live at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026! Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O’Kane took over the Builders Stage Tuesday morning to tackle a growing challenge for the AI industry: what happens when AI agents go off-script, and who’s responsible for keeping them in check? Recent incidents, from Anthropic pulling internal evaluations off the live internet after agents misbehaved to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella calling for an “emergency brake” on AI models, have brought agent security into focus. The Equity team unpacked whether the problem calls for better engineering, new regulation, or both, and why startups are raising millions to secure AI agents. Listen to the full episode to hear more about: The Anthropic agent mishaps, including a false police report that went nowhere after landing in a spam folder Nadella’s call for an AI emergency brake, and why the hosts wonder what took so long The funding race to secure AI agents, from AIR’s $50 million raise to Reco’s $55 million and Oak’s $60 million for agent identity, plus Sequoia-backed Cymphony Why independent verification and certification could be key to building trust, and whether Big Tech will buy its way out of the problem Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, and all the casts. You can also follow Equity on X and Threads. Chapters: 00:00 Intro and what we’re excited for at Disrupt 01:34 Durability, security, and Anthropic’s rogue agents 04:41 Nadella’s “emergency brake” post 06:33 NVIDIA’s OpenShell and the engineering-vs-regulation debate 10:04 The agent security startup boom: AIR, Reco, Cymphony 13:38 When agents go rogue in real life 15:55 Certifications and standards 19:33 HiddenLayer and the jump to production 20:40 Will Big Tech just acquire these startups? 22:52 Consumer trust and agent adoption 25:05 Predictions: acquisitions vs. independent verifiers 27:26 What’s coming up at Disrupt 29:02 Outro Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
10月7日

After selling to P&G and Lululemon, these founders are building for life beyond the screen

Tristan Walker and Brynn Putnam both built and sold major consumer companies. Now, they’re building products designed to bring people together. Today on Equity, we’re bringing you a conversation TechCrunch AI editor Russell Brandom had on stage at the latest StrictlyVC event in New York. Russell sat down with Walker, who sold Bevel maker Walker & Company to Procter & Gamble and is now building leathercraft trade school Heirloom, and Putnam, who sold fitness startup Mirror to Lululemon and is now CEO of Board, a touchscreen console that combines board games and video games. The two repeat founders talk about what they learned from their first companies, why they’re focused on physical skills and shared experiences now, and how AI could make hands-on, human connection more valuable rather than less. Walker explains why he sees growing demand for mastery and trade skills, while Putnam talks about using technology to bring people together instead of pulling them into individual screens. 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
10月2日

Call it AI, call it Super Intelligence, only 2% of consumers are buying it

This week, the White House got nearly every major tech CEO in one room — Zuckerberg, Bezos, Musk, and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei among them — to sign an AI safety pledge that President Donald Trump called “morally binding.” Trump also signed an executive order officially rebranding AI as “super intelligence,” and meanwhile, Meta and OpenAI are putting friendlier faces on their AI products, even as the biggest money in AI still appears to be coming from the enterprise. On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O’Kane dig into this week’s AI moves, the ugly economics of consumer AI, plus the shifting IPO market and a handful of startup deals. Listen to the full episode to hear more about: What Oura pulling its IPO, plus Anthropic’s leaked S-1 and OpenAI going back to private funding, says about how picky public markets have gotten Quartermaster’s $140M raise to bring real-time sensors to an industry that AI basically hasn’t touched yet: maritime shipping Why Atomic, a supply-chain startup from ex-Tesla vets, is already running 90% of DoorDash’s purchasing How Startup Battlefield finalist Charter Space raised $5M to bring insurance to satellites Speaking of Startup Battlefield, join us at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, where Equity will kick things off with a live show on the Builders Stage at 9 a.m. Get 25% off your tickets with code Equity25. 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
10月1日

The Case for Crowdfunding Before Raising Venture Capital with Everette Taylor, Kickstarter

For years, crowdfunding had a reputation as the place founders went when they couldn’t raise venture capital. Kickstarter CEO Everette Taylor thinks founders should look at it very differently. In this episode of Build Mode, host Isabelle Johannesen sits down with Everett to talk about crowdfunding as an alternative and sometimes a precursor to traditional venture funding. Everette’s own path into entrepreneurship was unconventional. Growing up in Richmond, Virginia, far from Silicon Valley, he says he didn’t know what venture capital, SaaS, or ARR were when he started his first company. Instead, he threw parties to make enough money to fund the software he was building. He eventually sold that company at 21, an experience that taught him some hard lessons about understanding the value of what you’ve built. Today, as CEO of Kickstarter, Everette is making the case that founders don’t necessarily have to choose between crowdfunding and venture capital. A successful Kickstarter campaign can help founders raise non-dilutive capital, find their first customers, test demand, and establish product-market fit—all before giving up a piece of their company. And for founders who eventually do want VC backing, Everett argues that traction can give them considerably more leverage at the negotiating table. He also explains why Kickstarter is increasingly attracting established companies and creators, what makes hardware particularly well suited to crowdfunding, how AI is changing who can become an entrepreneur, and what founders need to have in place before launching a campaign. They get into: How Everette funded his first startup by throwing parties What selling his first company taught him about understanding your value The differences between donation, equity, and reward-based crowdfunding Why Kickstarter can work particularly well for hardware startups What crowdfunding can give founders that venture capital can’t How Kickstarter can help founders find early adopters and test product-market fit Why crowdfunding can give founders more leverage when they eventually raise VC What founders need before launching a Kickstarter campaign Why Everette says the stigma around crowdfunding is disappearing How AI is pushing more people toward entrepreneurship Why AI-powered hardware is growing on Kickstarter Whether founders actually need venture capital after a successful campaign The three things Everette thinks every Kickstarter campaign needs How founders can build trust with backers Why major brands are increasingly launching products on Kickstarter What Oculus, Peloton, and Oura did differently Why Everett believes ownership and creative independence matter for founders Chapters: 00:00 — Why founders should consider crowdfunding 01:36 — Everette Taylor’s unconventional path to entrepreneurship 03:25 — Learning the value of what you’ve built 05:08 — How Everette became CEO of Kickstarter 07:11 — The different types of crowdfunding 10:32 — Equity crowdfunding vs. Kickstarter 13:01 — Can B2B startups use Kickstarter? 14:34 — What crowdfunding can offer that VC can’t 16:29 — What founders need before launching a campaign 17:36 — Is there still a stigma around crowdfunding? 18:56 — How AI is changing entrepreneurship 20:46 — Using Kickstarter as a path to venture capital 22:56 — Three tips for launching a Kickstarter campaign 25:19 — How early is too early for Kickstarter? 26:39 — Why big brands are coming to Kickstarter28:33 — Everette’s favorite projects to back 29:21 — What Oculus, Peloton, and Oura got right 31:15 — The case for ownership over venture capital Join us at TechCrunch Disrupt October 13-15 in San Francisco. Use promo code: buildmode25 for 25% off your ticket. 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.
8月28日

Will TikTok and YouTube follow Meta’s new rules for teens?

Earlier this week, Meta agreed to pay $18 billion and make sweeping changes to how minors access its social networks to settle a lawsuit brought by 29 states. But the eye-popping settlement figure wasn't what caught the attention of the Equity podcast team. Instead, it was what Meta did next. The social media giant sent an open letter to TikTok and YouTube asking the companies to join it in setting industry-wide standards for teens, including daily time limits, blocking access to apps at night, and restricting notifications during school hours. But will these other companies follow? The Equity team doesn't think they will. On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan, Kirsten Korosec, and Sean O'Kane dig into the Meta settlement, what it could mean for other social media companies, and more of the week’s headlines. Listen to the full episode to hear more about: How investors are pouring money into robotics startups and driving up valuations. For instance, Generalist reached a $3 billion valuation, while General Intuition hit the $6 billion mark. Even though robotics is a hot sector, there is pain point: robots still lack the know-how to do value-creating work. What senior reporter Sean O'Kane discovered when he dug into OSHA data connected to robotaxi companies like Waymo and Zoox. What self-driving truck startup Gatik's $200 million raise means for the sector. Hugging Face is reportedly being acquired by Nvidia. The team weighs in what this means for the industry. Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and wherever you get your podcasts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
9月25日

Meta’s Muse just stole the spotlight from OpenAI and Anthropic

When AI leaders at OpenAI and Anthropic started talking about “pacing the frontier,” maybe someone should have asked: what pace? It’s turned into model drop week for both companies as Anthropic rolled out Opus 5.5, followed by OpenAI’s GPT-6 model updates just 90 minutes later. But the company that stole the spotlight this week was Meta, whose personal AI agent Muse is reportedly outpacing ChatGPT’s early numbers and is headed for smart glasses and a tiny Tamagotchi-style device next. On this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O’Kane dig into Meta’s consumer AI strategy and what it means for the startups trying to build on top of this technology, from where the money is flowing to which AI products might actually become part of people's daily lives. They also get into a16z's new school for aspiring founders and two very different AI and hardware deals. Listen to the full episode to hear more about: How a16z's Horowitz Andreessen Academy plans to pave a new path for aspiring founders, and why the Equity crew sees echoes of the Thiel Fellowship and Silicon Valley's long-running anti-college streak Why Oura's $2.2 billion IPO looks more like a payday for existing shareholders than a major fundraising event for the company Ema’s $77 million raise to sell teams of AI agents that automate HR, IT, and finance workflows, with Google and Microsoft among its early enterprise customers 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
9月30日

A Neko Health investor on the $700M bet to scan your whole body

Spotify founder Daniel Ek’s Neko Health raised $700 million to build a business around scanning your body, but it’s not the only company centering its roadmap around a new kind of preventative healthcare. Midjourney is building its own body scanner, while Function Health has also raised significant capital to build out its preventative-health platform. Why are investors betting so big on this category? On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Dominic-Madori Davis talks with Farooq Abbasi, founder and general partner of Preface Ventures and an investor in Neko Health, about how Neko compares with other consumer-health startups. They discuss what has to happen for body scanning to become part of the broader healthcare system. Listen to the full episode to hear more about: Why Farooq invested in Neko after trying the company's scan himself What Neko's $500 scan actually includes, and how the company keeps the price down Why Farooq thinks low primary-care utilization is one of the biggest problems in U.S. healthcare Why some consumer-health startups may be overfunded, in Farooq's view How better health data could open the door to a new generation of AI-powered healthcare 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 — Can Tech Reinvent Preventative Healthcare?01:44 — Why Spotify’s Founder Built Neko Health06:22 — Why Healthcare Is So Hard to Fix08:23 — Inside a $500 Neko Health Scan12:35 — Can Preventative Healthcare Scale?14:20 — The Risks of VC-Backed Healthcare17:28 — How AI Is Changing Medicine22:55 — Is AI in Healthcare Worth the Risk? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
9月23日

What’s next for cybersecurity, according to Index Ventures’ Shardul Shah

As concern over AI safety and rogue agents continue to make headlines, it’s no surprise that cybersecurity stocks are rising, or that investors are pouring massive amounts of capital into startups trying to build the next generation of security for an AI-native world. We’re even seeing companies like Instinct and Simile bring in nine-figure checks and valuations that wouldn't have made sense a few years ago. With a front row seat to it all is Shardul Shah, a partner at Index Ventures who’s spent nearly two decades investing in cybersecurity and enterprise software — including six consecutive rounds in cloud security startup Wiz, which Google acquired for $32 billion earlier this year in one of its largest acquisitions ever. On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Shah joins Rebecca Bellan to break down why he thinks periodic, human-in-the-loop security can’t keep up anymore, and why Index continues investing in AI-native security companies at stages that once required much more proof. Listen to the full episode to hear more about: Why Shah thinks cyber insurance should be most companies’ first move in managing AI-era risk What happens when a single attacker can deploy a 10,000-agent ransomware swarm, and why that could force cybersecurity to become more machine-to-machine How Wiz’s founders paved the way for a new generation of startups, including Frame and Enigma Shah’s take on “pacing the frontier,” and why he thinks even a slowdown in model capability wouldn’t cool off cybersecurity investment Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. Chapters: 00:00 Intro 02:02 Why AI is creating a new cybersecurity category 05:16 The cyber insurance layer most companies overlook 09:15 Why Index is betting on AI-native security platforms 12:40 Will Wiz become a talent factory for new startups? 14:46 What actually makes a founder worth betting on 16:11 The hard part of knowing when to double down 18:53 Why Shardul says he’s not a visionary investor 21:16 How AI could reshape the entire security stack 24:18 What makes an AI security startup defensible 25:14 Why he doesn’t want to find “the next Wiz” 26:48 Why investors are writing huge checks so early 29:39 What happens to AI valuations if the frontier gets paced 31:01 Outro Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
4月8日

Snowflake’s transition from storing data to shipping with it

Snowflake is betting that the future of AI isn’t just analyzing data, it’s acting on it. That means a shift away from chatbots and toward autonomous agents that can actually get work done. And Snowflake is reorganizing fast to keep up, from shipping hundreds of AI features to restructuring teams along the way.On this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan sits down with Snowflake CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy to unpack the company’s transformation and what it signals about where AI is headed next. Listen to the full episode to hear: Why Ramaswamy believes the chatbot era is ending and the agentic era is beginning. How Snowflake is evolving from a data warehouse into an AI and applications platform. What “shipping with your data” actually looks like in practice. Why the company is making big internal changes to support its AI push. Subscribe to Equity on ⁠YouTube⁠,⁠ Apple Podcasts⁠,⁠ Overcast⁠,⁠ Spotify⁠ and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on⁠ X⁠ and⁠ Threads⁠, at @EquityPod. Chapters: 00:00 Intro 00:17 Snowflake’s AI shift and agentic future 01:45 Why 2026 marks the end of chatbots 04:09 Cortex Code, Snowflake Intelligence, and new products 06:09 Who benefits: non-technical users & enterprises 07:35 Adoption challenges and why AI pilots fail 12:11 How AI is reshaping jobs and skills 14:39 Layoffs, automation, and the future of documentation 18:37 Snowflake’s evolution into an AI platform 21:04 Competition: Databricks, hyperscalers, and AI giants 25:01 Outro Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

ウェブサイト

TechCrunch

トップ番組

Amazon drops data center NDAs, and AI agents want your credit card

Who’s the sheriff in AI’s wild west? (Equity Live at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026)

After selling to P&G and Lululemon, these founders are building for life beyond the screen

Call it AI, call it Super Intelligence, only 2% of consumers are buying it

The Case for Crowdfunding Before Raising Venture Capital with Everette Taylor, Kickstarter

Will TikTok and YouTube follow Meta’s new rules for teens?

Meta’s Muse just stole the spotlight from OpenAI and Anthropic

A Neko Health investor on the $700M bet to scan your whole body

What’s next for cybersecurity, according to Index Ventures’ Shardul Shah

Snowflake’s transition from storing data to shipping with it

番組について

TechCrunch

トップ番組

トップエピソード

番組について