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2日前

This Sequoia-backed lab thinks the brain is 'the floor, not the ceiling' for AI

AI lab Flapping Airplanes just landed $180 million in seed funding from the likes of Google Ventures, Sequoia, and Index to do something most labs have quietly given up on: making models learn like humans instead of vacuuming up the internet. The founding team, made up of brothers Ben and Asher Spector and co-founder Aidan Smith, is betting that radically more data-efficient training could open the door to entirely new AI capabilities. Today on Equity, TechCrunch AI editor Russell Brandon sits down with all three founders to discuss why investors wrote such a large check for a lab with no product, what becomes possible with more efficient AI, and why they're prioritizing creativity over credentials. Listen to the full episode to hear about: Why the Flapping Airplanes team is focused on research first, commercialization later What the "neolabs" generation means for AI development How they plan to make AI models 1,000x more data efficient. A hint? The team thinks the brain is "the floor, not the ceiling" for AI capabilities 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

2日前

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30分
6日前

How far will Elon Musk take the ‘everything’ business as SpaceX and xAI merge?

Elon Musk has merged SpaceX and xAI, creating what might be the blueprint for a new Silicon Valley power structure. With his $800 billion net worth already rivaling historic conglomerate GE's peak market cap, and Musk being vocal about his view that "tech victory is decided by velocity of innovation," the question isn't whether a personal conglomerate can be built, but rather how far Musk himself is going to take it. Today on Equity, we're unpacking this new era of the "everything" business, whether we'll see others like Sam Altman follow suit, and more of the week's headlines. Listen to the full episode to hear about: Waymo's new $16B funding and why Alphabet staying as majority owner matters for an eventual IPO Why everyone from Intel to Tesla is trying to break Nvidia's AI chip dominance ElevenLabs’ $11B valuation, and why some investors are doubling — and quadrupling — down as it moves beyond voice AI Positron's $230M bet on power-efficient chips as the next frontier 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

6日前

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39分
2月4日

What a16z is actually funding (and what it's ignoring) when it comes to AI infra

Andreessen Horowitz just raised a whopping new $15 billion in funding. And a $1.7 billion chunk of that is going to its infrastructure team, the one responsible for some of its biggest, most prominent AI investments including Black Forrest Labs, Cursor, OpenAI, ElevenLabs, Ideogram, Fal and dozens of others. A16z general partner with the infra team Jennifer Li (who oversees such investments as ElevenLabs – just valued at $11 billion); Ideagram and Fal, has a clear thesis on where the team is looking to spend it’s latest chunk of cash. Today on TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Venture and Startups editor Julie Bort talked with Li about where a16z sees this AI super cycle going next, including the talent crunch hitting AI-native startups, why search infrastructure matters more than people think, and what kinds of companies are actually getting funded right now. Listen to the full episode to hear about: Where Li thinks the gaps still are when it comes to startups building an AI stack What makes the most successful AI portfolio companies different How tools like voice AI are rising in importance (yet still a bit uncomfortable to witness) The AI startups she's still searching for and is ready to fund Chapters: 00:00 Intro 01:01 Andreessen Horowitz's $1.7B infrastructure fund 05:00 Crossing the uncanny valley in AI-generated content 07:14 Agents finally becoming real in 2026 09:30 Building your first productivity agent 11:56 Why email agents aren't quite there yet 15:00 Which jobs will agents replace first? 18:05 The most unhinged opinion: Creativity belongs to humans 20:21 The limits of LLMs and the rise of world models 22:13 AI-designed chips are coming 24:00 The truth behind those viral ARR numbers 26:10 Hiring at AI speed: The talent shortage problem 28:47 The pricing mistake that became a big deal 29:21 The future of search for AI agents 30:45 Outro 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

2月4日

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33分
1月30日

Uber puts another chip on the self-driving roulette table

Self-driving truck startup Waabi's billion-dollar fundraise isn't just about trucks. The deal, for $750 million up front plus another $250 million from Uber tied to deployment milestones, marks a major expansion into robotaxis for the company founded by former Uber AI chief Raquel Urtasun. It also feels like another chip from Uber on the autonomous vehicle roulette table. With more than 20 AV partners worldwide, the question isn't just whether Waabi can deliver on its plans to deploy over 25,000 robotaxis, but whether Uber's bet-on-everything strategy actually works. Today on TechCrunch's Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Sean O'Kane and Anthony Ha discussed Uber's AV partnership strategy, why Waabi's "simulation-first" approach might be different, and more of the week's headlines. Listen to the full episode to hear about: Anduril's drone race recruitment stunt and whether it's the future of hiring or just good PR Phia’s $35M raise for an AI shopping assistant as brick-and-mortar stores close their doors Northwood Space's $100M Series B and the booming space infrastructure market Who’s really winning in TikTok's messy US ownership deal, and the competitors trying to capitalize The IPO window cracking open, and how SpaceX plans to go through it Chapters: 00:00 Intro 02:13 Palmer Luckey's bold recruiting strategy 04:04 Phia raises $35M for sustainable shopping 06:27 Browser extensions & the privacy problem 09:59 Northwood Space's $100M Series B & Space Force contract 12:17 The rise of dual-use space companies 14:01 Waabi's $1B valuation & beyond trucking 16:36 Uber's strategy: Betting on every AV partner 19:12 TikTok's US deal & immediate outage 21:46 TikTok competitors gain ground 24:03 IPO window opening: Ethos, Serve, and SpaceX 27:57 Will Elon actually take SpaceX public this time? 29:11 Outro 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

1月30日

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31分
1月23日

AI CEOs transformed Davos into a tech conference

The World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos felt different this year, and not just because Meta and Salesforce took over storefronts on the main promenade. AI dominated the conversation in a way that overshadowed traditional topics like climate change and global poverty, and the CEOs weren't holding back. There was public criticism of trade policy, warnings about AI bubbles popping, and a lot of talk about what comes next for the industry. Meanwhile, back in Silicon Valley, AI startup Humans& raised a $480 million seed round with no product on the market, just a vision for "social intelligence" AI and a team of ex-Anthropic, Google, and xAI employees. Today on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O'Kane discuss why raising hundreds of millions before building a product is apparently the new norm, which conversations took over Davos this week, and more. Listen to the full episode to hear more from the week, including: Whether Meta's 10% layoffs at Reality Labs means the end for the metaverse, and who’s defending Meta's VR investments Serve Robotics' acquisition of Diligent, a startup bringing delivery bots into hospitals OpenAI’s rumored earbuds and what we expect to see from the AI company’s first hardware product. 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

1月23日

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31分
1月28日

The SpaceX IPO could finally happen (and it's a big deal)

SpaceX is reportedly lining up four major Wall Street banks for a 2026 IPO that could provide the reset the market needs. The company just completed a tender offer at an $800 billion valuation, and secondary market demand is through the roof. If SpaceX goes public anywhere near its rumored $1.5 trillion valuation, it could trigger an IPO cascade for other late-stage unicorns like OpenAI, Stripe, and Databricks. Today on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan spoke with Greg Martin, Managing Director at Rainmaker Securities, to discuss why this IPO feels different, how tech employees are cashing out through secondary markets before companies go public, and what investors are actually looking for in pre-IPO shares. Listen to the full episode to hear: Which other late-stage unicorns are seeing the most secondary trading action right now. Why SpaceX is ready to go public, despite previously saying it “wouldn't IPO until rockets were flying to Mars regularly” (and why Martin doesn’t think SpaceX will continue on its debut path if the market tanks) The "Elon halo effect" and how much of SpaceX's valuation is based on Musk himself What happens when SpaceX employees want to sell shares before the IPO Chapters: 00:00 Introduction 01:39 The Booming Secondary Market for Pre-IPO Shares 04:06 SpaceX as an IPO Bellwether 06:31 Why Elon Musk Changed His Mind on Going Public 10:04 The Race to a Trillion-Dollar Valuation 12:27 The Elon Halo Effect on Valuations 15:17 What Signals an Upcoming IPO? 17:50 How Secondaries Drive Better Price Discovery 20:47 How SpaceX Secondaries Actually Work 24:03 What Investors Want from Pre-IPO Companies 25:11 The Have and Have-Not World of Secondaries 26:42 Outro 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

1月28日

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29分
22時間前

Glean’s fight to own the AI layer inside every company

Enterprise AI is shifting fast from chatbots that answer questions to systems that actually do the work across an organization. But who will own the AI layer that powers all of it? Glean, which started as an enterprise search product, has evolved into what it calls an “AI work assistant,” aiming to sit underneath other AI experiences, connecting to internal systems, managing permissions, and delivering intelligence wherever employees work. On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan sits down with Glean’s CEO and founder Arvind Jain at Web Summit Qatar to break down how enterprises are thinking about AI architecture, what's driving consolidation, and what's real versus hype in the agent space. Listen to the full episode to hear about: The fight between bundled AI from tech titans like Microsoft, Google and platform layers like Glean and its competitors. How AI adoption is reshaping leadership and organizational design. Why permissions and governance are harder problems than most companies realize. 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

22時間前

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30分
1月21日

Build Mode: Capital is a commodity (but your investor relationships aren’t)

Today on Equity, we're teaming up with our newest podcast, Build Mode. In this interview, Build Mode host Isabelle Johannessen sits down with Ross Fubini of XYZ Ventures and Leslie Feinzaig of Graham & Walker Ventures to pull back the curtain on how VCs build their own go-to-market strategies. They dig into what it’s really like raising a first fund, why founder-market fit applies to investors too, and how the best investor relationships start years before you ever need the money. 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

1月21日

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45分
1月16日

OpenAI and Anthropic are making their play for healthcare, and we're not surprised

AI companies are clustering around healthcare and fast. In just the past week, OpenAI bought health startup Torch, Anthropic launched Claude for Health, and Sam Altman-backed MergeLabs closed a $250 million seed round at an $850 million valuation. The money and products are pouring into health and voice AI, but so are concerns about hallucination risks, inaccurate medical information, and massive security vulnerabilities in systems handling sensitive patient data. Today on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O'Kane dig into why the AI world is suddenly obsessed with health care, what other products can expect an AI-makeover, and more. Listen to the full episode to hear: How Anthropic's co-work tool could threaten Salesforce and other enterprise software giants Bandcamp’s move against AI, banning AI-generated music from its platform Why fusion energy is heating up, with startups like Type One Energy suddenly raising hundreds of millions The latest on Luminar's bankruptcy and a potential bidding war overits LIDAR assets Chapters: 00:00 - Introduction 00:29 - Waymo testing in New York City? 02:13 - Bandcamp bans AI-generated music 04:57 - Luminar's bankruptcy and LIDAR fire sale 10:28 - Type One Energy's fusion funding frenzy 16:10 - AI's healthcare land grab 23:28 - Voice AI deals heat up 25:26 - Anthropic's co-work tool threatens enterprise software 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

1月16日

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33分
1月14日

The multibillion-dollar AI security problem enterprises can't ignore

AI agents are supposed to make work easier. Instead, they're creating a whole new category of security nightmares. As companies deploy AI-powered chatbots, agents, and copilots across their operations, they're facing a new risk: how do you let employees and AI agents use powerful AI tools without accidentally leaking sensitive data, violating compliance rules, or opening the door to prompt-based injections? Witness AI just raised $58 million to find a solution, building what they call "the confidence layer for enterprise AI." Today on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan was joined by Barmak Meftah, co-founder and partner at Ballistic Ventures, and Rick Caccia, CEO of Witness AI, to discuss what enterprises are actually worried about, why AI security become an $800 billion to $1.2 trillion market by 2031, and what happens when AI agents start talking to other AI agents without human oversight. Listen to the full episode to hear: How enterprises accidentally leak sensitive data through "shadow AI" usage. What CISOs are actually worried about right now, how the problem has evolved rapidly over 18 months, and what it will look like over the next year. Why traditional cybersecurity approaches don't work for AI agents. Real examples of AI agents going rogue, including one that threatened to blackmail an employee. 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

1月14日

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31分

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

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TechCrunch

トップ番組

This Sequoia-backed lab thinks the brain is 'the floor, not the ceiling' for AI

How far will Elon Musk take the ‘everything’ business as SpaceX and xAI merge?

What a16z is actually funding (and what it's ignoring) when it comes to AI infra

Uber puts another chip on the self-driving roulette table

AI CEOs transformed Davos into a tech conference

The SpaceX IPO could finally happen (and it's a big deal)

Glean’s fight to own the AI layer inside every company

Build Mode: Capital is a commodity (but your investor relationships aren’t)

OpenAI and Anthropic are making their play for healthcare, and we're not surprised

The multibillion-dollar AI security problem enterprises can't ignore

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