Kate Clark

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  1. An ex-Anthropic researcher’s doomsday warning comes at a very interesting time

    9월 11일

    An ex-Anthropic researcher’s doomsday warning comes at a very interesting time

    An Anthropic researcher resigned this week, warning in a post on X that the company is “racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives”. The company's own alignment lead even co-signed the message rather than walking it back. It's the kind of doomer warning the AI industry has flirted with before, but the timing, with Anthropic reportedly preparing for an IPO, makes it land differently.    On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O'Kane dig into the latest AI safety warning and what it says about the industry's race toward increasingly capable models. Plus, Apple's first big event under new CEO John Ternus and more of the week's headlines.    Listen to the full episode to hear more about:  Why Apple leaned hard into AI at its hardware event, and how always-on features baked into the Watch and AirPods may matter more than the splashy new foldable iPhone  How Stokes Space's $1 billion raise reflects a launch market that's suddenly wide open now that SpaceX is winding down its Falcon rockets  Why investors poured $2 billion into coding startup Cognition at a $48 billion valuation, and what it says about how much room VCs think is left in AI coding  What a $50 million seed round for floating nuclear reactors says about the scramble to power AI data centers  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  3:28 Anthropic researcher's resignation warning  9:33 What's actually being done about AI risk?  15:56 Apple's AI-first hardware event  19:56 The case against a standalone AI wearable  21:53 Always-on listening: watch, AirPods, and privacy tradeoffs  26:43 The foldable iPhone's odds  27:16 Stoke Space raises $1B for a reusable rocket  31:17 Cognition raises $2B, betting on room for more AI coding players  34:13 BlueCore Energy's floating nuclear reactors  37:38 Outro  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  2. Why Thrive, Founders Fund, and Antonio Gracias are betting on hearing aids

    4일 전

    Why Thrive, Founders Fund, and Antonio Gracias are betting on hearing aids

    “Why do I have to beg my grandparents to put on their hearing aids, but no one has ever needed to ask me to put on my glasses?”    That’s the question that drove Matthew de Jonge to spend six years building Fortell, an AI hearing aid startup that recently raised $163 million from the likes of Founders Fund, Thrive Capital, and Valor Equity Partners CEO Antonio Gracias. The buzzy startup aims to build hearing aids that understand the sounds around you in real time, figure out what’s important and turn down the rest — instead of turning everything up at the same time, as most hearing aids do.     On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan is joined by de Jonge to break down what it takes to disrupt a decades-old industry where five companies make 97% of the products, insurance won’t cover the cost, and innovation has been slow to arrive.    Listen to the full episode to hear more about:  How de Jonge went from mechanical engineering and a hedge fund career to building handheld ultrasound machines at Butterfly Network, and why that experience gave him the confidence to take on hearing aids next.  The AI architecture behind Fortell's approach, including a custom chip built by a former Google TPU designer.  Why the five companies that dominate the hearing aid industry have been so slow to innovate, and how that shaped Fortell's pitch to investors.  De Jonge's take on Apple's AirPods as both a hearing aid alternative and an at-home hearing test, and why he sees them as complementary rather than a threat.  The regulatory hurdles around remote hearing aid fittings, and how state-level telemedicine laws are shaping Fortell's path 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.  Chapters:  00:00 Intro  1:14 Why Matt built Fortell   5:16 The problem with hearing aids: everything's just... loud   7:36 How Fortell's AI separates important sound from noise   12:12 The funding pitch that won over Founders Fund and Thrive   16:31 Hearing aids vs. AI wearables (Meta, Apple, Legato)   20:34 Pricing, insurance, and the hearing aid "cartel"   23:25 Scaling up: new clinics and remote fitting  26:57 Outro  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  3. ControlAI's Connor Leahy on why superintelligence is ‘not a weapon, it's an adversary’

    9월 9일

    ControlAI's Connor Leahy on why superintelligence is ‘not a weapon, it's an adversary’

    AI companies have been talking about superintelligent AI like it's inevitable, but recent safety incidents like OpenAI's Hugging Face breach are demonstrating the potential dangers of deploying AI systems that are more capable than humans. So what happens when we can't reliably control what these systems do?  On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan is joined by Connor Leahy, an AI researcher, entrepreneur, and now the U.S. Executive Director of nonprofit ControlAI, which is pushing for a far more radical approach to AI safety: stopping companies from developing superintelligence altogether. Leahy explains why he thinks the risks have become too great to manage through alignment and containment alone, and how what sounded far-fetched six months ago is now being backed by a wave of new legislation.  Listen to the full episode to hear more about:  His take on the Sanders-Casar “Ban Superintelligence Act,” the parallel legislation in the U.K. that Control AI advised on, and why he thinks the U.S. bill may go further than necessary.  How he views frontier AI labs less as companies simply chasing returns and more as political actors, and what that means for the trillions of dollars being poured into data center buildouts.  Why Leahy thinks the real point of no return is when AI can build better AI, creating a potentially runaway cycle of self-improvement  The case for international “trust but verify” agreements, and why Leahy thinks it isn't actually in China's interest to build superintelligence.  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

  4. Apple's Ternus era begins as Nvidia bets on the whole AI stack

    9월 4일

    Apple's Ternus era begins as Nvidia bets on the whole AI stack

    It's officially the Ternus era at Apple.   Tim Cook stepped down as CEO this week, handing the company to former hardware chief John Ternus, whose first memo promised a “huge launch next week” — timing that puts Apple's next iPhone event on his desk before he's even settled in. Cook isn't going far, though: he's staying on as executive chairman, focused on the kind of policy relationships that recently turned something as small as a map label into a very public balancing act. All of which raises an obvious question: what does the Ternus era look like, and how much rope will shareholders give him to figure it out?  On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec and Sean O'Kane unpack what Ternus is walking into, why he may actually be better positioned to make progress on software than hardware in this new AI era, and more of the week's news.  Listen to the full episode to hear more about:  Why Nvidia keeps making moves that look less like a chipmaker and more like a company trying to own the entire AI stack, from its Hugging Face acquisition to its investment in MediaTek and deeper compute deals  A chaotic week for robotaxis: Tesla's Cybercab event, Waymo's expansion into new cities, Zoox's first paid rides, and what happens when these companies start competing head-to-head  What Andreessen Horowitz's new $1.1 billion “Machine Age” fund signals about where early-stage AI hardware bets are headed  Why the $285 million acquisition of GoPro marks the end of an era for one of Silicon Valley's original consumer tech darlings  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  1:12 Tim Cook steps down & John Ternus takes over as CEO  13:33 Nvidia's spreading its AI bets  21:58 A big week for robotaxis: Tesla, Waymo, Zoox & Uber  29:09 a16z's $1.1B "machine age" fund and $8.5B growth fund  32:39 GoPro's $285M acquisition and pivot to AI/defense  36:34 Outro  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  5. We're ‘dangerously close’ to dead internet theory according to Pangram's CEO

    9월 2일

    We're ‘dangerously close’ to dead internet theory according to Pangram's CEO

    The internet has a trust problem, and it’s not just because social media feeds are filling up with AI slop. AI-generated text and images are now making their way into job applications, product reviews, and even insurance claims, leaving platforms and users alike scrambling to figure out what’s real.  A handful of startups have cropped up in the past couple of years to become the “trust layer” the internet needs — including Pangram. The startup recently snapped up $9 million for its AI detection system and landed a partnership with Substack, which is now using Pangram’s tech to show readers which of their favorite authors use AI to write their newsletters. Pangram also recently dropped a new AI image detection tool.  On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Pangram co-founder and CEO Max Spero joins Rebecca Bellan to dig into the promise of AI detection tools and where to draw the line between AI assisted and AI generated.  Listen to the full episode to hear more about:  Why Spero thinks the internet could be “dangerously close” to the dead internet theory becoming reality within a few years.  Why figuring out how much AI went into something is harder — and potentially more useful — than simply labeling it AI or human.  The stakes of getting AI detection wrong, especially when false positives involve sensitive images.  Why Spero thinks the “bottom tier” of writing jobs may be gone for good, while genuinely good human writing could become more valuable.  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  1:15 Building Pangram: from binary detector to gauging AI assistance  2:06 Why job applications, reviews, and Amazon are drowning in slop  5:39 How Pangram actually spots AI writing  9:26 Where people draw the line on AI-assisted vs. AI-generated  12:50 The false positive problem, and "America has a Pangram problem"  14:30 Detecting fake images, now that AI photos are scarily good  19:13 Competing with GPTZero, Winston, and building "core infrastructure"  21:43 Will good writing jobs actually come back?  23:36 Outro   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  6. Jill Lepore on the ‘Artificial State,’ and why Silicon Valley's leaders are bad sci-fi readers

    8월 7일

    Jill Lepore on the ‘Artificial State,’ and why Silicon Valley's leaders are bad sci-fi readers

    Historian Jill Lepore has a theory about why tech companies often use soaring language to describe their products — almost as if they're forming a new government. And whether you're thinking of Twitter's old “town hall in your pocket” or Anthropic's Claude constitution, it's a theory that doesn't paint Silicon Valley in a very flattering light.   In Lepore's upcoming book, The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Harvard historian and New Yorker writer argues that tech companies are gradually taking on the functions of democratic government — whether that’s Twitter giving a distorted picture of the electorate or Facebook displacing local news. In her view, these leaders often mistake technological advancement for political progress, all while outright declaring their intention to replace the nation-state.    On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Anthony Ha talks with Lepore about her book and why she thinks today's AI leaders — who promise a future where AI makes government more efficient, more responsive, and maybe even unnecessary — are selling an old fantasy in new packaging.    Listen to the full episode to hear more about:  Why Lepore sees a straight line from the classic 1984 Macintosh ad to Anthropic's AI constitution and Sam Altman's comments about an “AI president”  How E.M. Forster’s 1909 sci-fi story “The Machine Stops” provides a blueprint for the artificial state, and why Lepore says it now reads like “the diary of a very unhappy YouTuber”  Why Lepore believes the artificial state is ultimately unsustainable, and what she thinks it would take to rein it in  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  0:49 Defining the “artificial state”  2:17 Why corporations quietly took over state functions  4:43 Could the internet have gone another way?  9:01 From the 1984 Macintosh ad to Anthropic's constitution  10:20 The Twitter “town hall” myth  13:36 Structuring the book: history meets science fiction  17:46 The Machine Stops, and other bad manuals for the future  19:16 Musk, Heinlein, and misreading sci-fi  19:41 Why Lepore thinks the artificial state is “doomed”  21:51 Data centers, local politics, and the death of local news  24:44 Revisiting disruptive innovation, ten years later  26:54 Outro  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

    8월 28일

    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

  8. Meta's “open” AI, data centers' hidden costs, and a $250M deal gone very wrong

    8월 14일

    Meta's “open” AI, data centers' hidden costs, and a $250M deal gone very wrong

    Meta released Glimmer this week, an open-weight AI model anyone can download and run on their own hardware — a contrast to Muse Spark, the company’s more powerful model that stays locked behind its own APIs. The release landed alongside a letter from Mark Zuckerberg arguing AI should be “for everyone” rather than controlled by a handful of labs, but as Equity’s hosts point out, the vision comes with some asterisks.    On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Rebecca Bellan take a look at Glimmer, Zuckerberg’s 6,500-word manifesto, and more of the week’s headlines, from the true cost of the AI industry’s energy needs to a $250M acquisition gone very wrong.    Listen to the full episode to hear more about:    Who’s on the market for a $300 cocktail robot?  Why Anthropic is adding watermarks to its generated text, and users are not happy.  The potential cost Amazon’s planned data center in Texas and the startups racing to fix the grid, including Form Energy’s $750M raise for 100-hour batteries, Reservoir’s $8M bet on smarter water heaters, and Discovered Materials’ hunt for cooler chips.  Why Joby Aviation’s $500M acquisition of a defense contractor reminds Kirsten of its Blade deal last year — and what the 2028 LA Olympics have to do with it.  How a $250M deal between video-clipping startup VideoVerse and sports publisher Minute Media collapsed amidst allegedly forged documents, multiple lawsuits, and a CEO nobody can reach.  Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod.    00:00 Intro  1:20 Would you buy a $300 cocktail robot?  3:08 Meta's Glimmer and the “AI for everyone” pitch  8:03 Anthropic starts watermarking its writing, and users have thoughts  14:34 Amazon's data center and its natural gas problem  16:37 The startups racing to keep the grid from melting down: Form Energy, Reservoir, and Discovered Materials  23:28 Joby Aviation buys into defense with Resonant Sciences  28:24 The $250M VideoVerse-Minute Media deal, a missing CEO, and a mess of lawsuits  32:37 Outro  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  9. Inside Ode with Anthropic, the private equity-backed startup betting AI services are the future of enterprise

    7월 15일

    Inside Ode with Anthropic, the private equity-backed startup betting AI services are the future of enterprise

    Can a handful of engineers really do the work of an army of consultants? That’s the bet behind Ode with Anthropic — the joint venture dedicated to embedding forward-deployed engineers in enterprise firms, backed by Anthropic, Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman, Goldman Sachs and others.     On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan sits down with Ode’s leaders Chris Taylor and Eddie Siegel, who founded Fractional AI, the applied AI services startup that Ode acquired earlier this year to serve as the new venture’s core. The three discuss why so many enterprise AI pilots never make it to production and why they think AI-native services are about to become one of the biggest categories in tech.    Listen to the full episode to hear more about:  The case for AI-native services, and why Ode believes small teams of applied AI engineers can unlock hundreds of millions of dollars in business value.  Why the company is hiring experienced generalists and former founders instead of AI researchers, and how it's turning them into elite FDEs.  Whether an AI services company can scale like software, yet maintain a boutique feel, and why Taylor believes Ode could one day become a trillion-dollar business.  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   00:30 Fractional AI becomes "Ode with Anthropic"  1:13 Why non-AI companies are the real AI winners  2:04 Working with Blackstone, Anthropic, and beyond  3:05 Inside a real project: fixing LogicGate's bottleneck  7:29 How long does it take from hypothesis to production?  9:19 Measuring ROI: revenue, efficiency, and evals  16:37 Model choice vs. workflow redesign, and why it's Claude-first  23:10 Hiring generalists over specialized AI talent  26:39 Can this scale without turning into another consulting firm?  30:49 Outro  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  10. Snowflake’s transition from storing data to shipping with it

    4월 8일

    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

  11. AI labs want to pump the brakes, but Amazon and SpaceX are still blasting off

    7월 31일

    AI labs want to pump the brakes, but Amazon and SpaceX are still blasting off

    After years of pushing full speed ahead on AI, Sam Altman says maybe it’s time for the AI industry to “pace” itself. The comments come just days after one of OpenAI's own models broke out of its test environment and got tangled up in a breach at Hugging Face, though as Equity’s hosts point out, sloppy security seems to have been just as much to blame as the model itself. Altman's not alone in this stance: both OpenAI and Anthropic have come out in support of a petition echoing that same message.    On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O'Kane dig into whether the industry is ready to pump the brakes or just spooked, and who's on the hook when a model goes rogue.    Listen to the full episode to hear more about:  The viral “Avoiding AI” workshops hosted by librarians to help people opt out of AI features they didn't ask for  How Amazon's new 5,000-satellite bid to connect directly to your phone could turn up the heat on SpaceX (even though it's unclear if anyone actually wants satellite-to-phone service)  Why somehow there's room for one more AI lab: Reid Hoffman and Mark Pincus's new startup, Prentis, is in talks to raise $100M at a $1B valuation  How Pangram raised $9 million to help publishers, teachers, and readers tell human writing from AI slop  Why DoorDash is building its own drone delivery business instead of just relying on partners like Wing and Flytrex  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  1:18 Zoox gets its robotaxi exemption  2:11 Sam Altman calls for pacing the frontier  6:01 The Hugging Face hack, dissected  10:12 Responsibility, regulation, and the Elon Musk wildcard  13:29 Librarians teaching people to unplug from AI  15:16 Prentice: a new AI lab raises at a $1B valuation  16:46 Amazon files for its own satellite-to-phone network  18:42 SpaceX, Blue Origin, and the launch-business angle  23:48 Pangram raises $9M to detect AI slop  29:23 DoorDash builds its own delivery drones  33:24 Outro  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  12. NEA's Tiffany Luck on AI IPOs, personal agents, and the ROI reckoning

    6월 17일

    NEA's Tiffany Luck on AI IPOs, personal agents, and the ROI reckoning

    Tokenmaxxing was the hottest trend in Silicon Valley earlier this year, with CEOs encouraging employees to push AI usage as far as it would go. Then the bill came due. Uber reportedly blew through its annual AI budget in a few months, some companies cut Claude licenses for parts of their org, and Meta killed its internal leaderboard.  This tension between hype and ROI is exactly where NEA partner Tiffany Luck lives these days. She got her start convincing companies that e-commerce was the future, and now she's all in on AI, especially when it comes to the possibilities for "magic moments" in the consumer business.  On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Luck joins Rebecca Bellan to talk about the future of personal agents, her thoughts on this year's AI IPOs, and how startups are stepping in to help enterprises track return on AI spend.  Listen to the full episode to hear:  What the tokenmaxxing-to-ROI shift means for how companies measure AI spend.  Why forward deployed engineers are becoming a "Trojan horse" for AI adoption.  How enterprises are mixing and matching models instead of committing to one provider.  Why Tiffany thinks value is being created at every layer of the AI stack, not just at the model layer.    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  00:51 Tiffany Luck's path from Lot18 to Amazon to VC  3:45 Magic moments: Waymo, healthcare, and the gap in personal agents  7:36 Privacy, security, and trusting AI with your life  10:39 IPO outlook: Anthropic vs. OpenAI on public markets  13:58 Compute, infrastructure, and where the value sits  15:41 What’s the ROI on tokenmaxxing?  27:07 Forward deployed engineers as a ‘Trojan horse’  32:49 Outro  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  13. From the Spotify Mafia to the Lovable Mafia: inside Stockholm's founder network

    8월 26일

    From the Spotify Mafia to the Lovable Mafia: inside Stockholm's founder network

    Vibe-coding darling Lovable just raised $400 million at a $13.3 billion valuation, roughly doubling its worth in eight months. But Lovable isn’t the only Stockholm startup putting up huge numbers lately — legal AI company Legora and health tech startup Neko Health are right there with it.  On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Dominic-Madori Davis is joined by Sophia Bendz, a partner at Cherry Ventures and longtime fixture of Europe’s startup scene, to unpack what’s driving startup growth in the Nordic ecosystem, from Sweden’s social safety net to the wave of U.S. capital flowing in.  Listen to the full episode to hear more about:  How the “Spotify Mafia” set the template for founders funneling their time, capital, and hard-won lessons back into Stockholm ecosystem, and how the same cycle may be starting again with the “Lovable Mafia”  Why Sweden’s social safety net might be fueling founders’ willingness to take bigger swings  Why Bendz is seeing American investors flying into Stockholm and handing out term sheets with little to no diligence, and the culture clash that’s creating with local funds  How Europe’s sovereignty conversation is shaping how founders and investors think about building, even as most of them still plan to IPO in New York  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  0:50 Why Stockholm’s startup ecosystem is accelerating  2:34 How Stockholm’s “Spotify mafia” passes knowledge down  4:10 Founders House and building a culture of mentorship  5:50 Does Sweden’s social safety net make founders more ambitious?  10:00 Is there a “Lovable mafia” now?  10:00 Europe’s push for tech sovereignty  14:00 The U.S. venture capital flooding Stockholm  18:08 How Europe can build more growth-stage funds  19:45 Founders are asking VCs, “How can you help me?”  21:05 Stockholm’s tech conferences  25:51 Could robotics become Stockholm’s next big thing?  29:45 Outro Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  14. Your gaming data could be the secret to AGI, according to this Bezos-backed startup

    7월 8일

    Your gaming data could be the secret to AGI, according to this Bezos-backed startup

    When it comes to achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI), large language models just don’t have what it takes. Models like ChatGPT and Claude are great at text, but they're less skilled at understanding how things actually move through space and time — an essential skill for producing intelligence that generalizes. That gap, it turns out, might be filled by gaming data. That's the bet behind General Intuition, a Bezos-backed, New York-based startup valued at $2.3 billion that just closed a $320 million round with Coatue, Eric Schmidt, and researchers at MIT and Google DeepMind joining its list of investors.    On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, General Intuition CEO Pim de Witte joins Rebecca Bellan to dig into why world models trained on gaming data might be the next big leap in physical AI, how the company spun out of gaming platform Medal TV, and where the ethical red lines are when your models could end up being used for defense applications.    Listen to the full episode to hear more about:  How eight minutes of real-world data was enough to get a robot navigating an office cold.  Why General Intuition turned down an acquisition offer reportedly from OpenAI to stay independent, and why having investors who back your mission is essential to building a generational company.  How the company is trying to get ahead of AI job displacement by building Nerve, a marketplace connecting gamers to data labeling and teleoperations work.  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

  15. ‘If this isn't addiction, I don't know what is’: Light Phone's founders get real about screen time and building for the anti-smartphone generation

    7월 29일

    ‘If this isn't addiction, I don't know what is’: Light Phone's founders get real about screen time and building for the anti-smartphone generation

    With the Light Phone, Kaiwei Tang and Joe Hollier have spent over a decade exploring the value of simplicity in our relationship to technology, partnering along the way with players like Andrew Yang, Kendrick Lamar, and Pete Davidson. Now, with a new flip phone and a growing wave of “attention activists” pushing back on big tech, they think the rest of the world is finally catching up to them.    On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Amanda Silberling talks with Tang and Hollier about the company's newly announced flip phone, why they think the anti-smartphone backlash is only just getting started, and what it takes to break an addiction that fits in your pocket.  Listen to the full episode to hear more about:  How the design lessons from the original Motorola Razr shaped the new Light Flip  What the "Summer of Ludd" attention activist movement says about Gen Z's relationship with big tech  Why Light Phone is opening up an SDK so users can build their own tools instead of opting for an app store  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  0:51 Building Light Phone  3:10 The user shift: why people are finally ready to unplug  7:54 Designing outside the Silicon Valley bubble  9:54 Why simple tech is making a comeback (CDs, iPods, flip phones)  13:50 From the Motorola Razr to the Light Flip  17:54 Pricing and the Noble Mobile phone plan  19:44 What actually happens when you switch (and the Flip Your Life program)  23:13 Building an open-source app library for Light Phone  26:38 Outro  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  16. AI has a GPU pricing problem. Silicon Data wants to fix it.

    8월 19일

    AI has a GPU pricing problem. Silicon Data wants to fix it.

    The AI buildout shows no signs of slowing. And with hundreds of billions of dollars a year going into data centers and GPUs, compute has become the single biggest cost for anyone building AI products. But for all that spending, there still isn’t a straightforward way to put a price on compute — or for firms to hedge their exposure when the price changes.  Silicon Data just closed a $30 million Series A to change that. The startup aims to become the reference price for GPU rental and an index that a Wall Street futures contract would settle against. The company plans to launch its compute futures trading on the CME October 5th, pending regulatory approval.  On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan is joined by Steve Hou, head of research at Silicon Data, to discuss the health of the AI buildout, and why the data is telling a different story than the doom and gloom headlines about depreciating chips and stalled data centers.  Listen to the full episode to hear more about:  What happens if OpenAI or Anthropic can’t make good on the massive compute commitments they’ve already promised, and whether “compute default” becomes a risk.  Why rental demand for older A100 chips is holding up, even as newer and more powerful GPUs hit the market.  If compute futures could make it easier for neo-clouds to finance expensive data centers by locking in future rental revenue.  What rising GPU rental rates across every contract length since March say about AI 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.    Chapters:    00:00 Intro  0:59 Futures contracts explained  4:01 Can GPU compute actually be a commodity?  7:10 Who's really trading these: hyperscalers, AI labs, and market makers  14:32 Locking in prices to make data center debt easier to swallow  18:21 Inside the pricing data  20:25 The A100 mystery: why an old chip is still in high demand  22:56 Do GPUs depreciate as fast as everyone thinks?  23:20 Making sense of the Texas and New York data center pauses  25:40 What the futures curve says about where prices are headed  28:01 Silicon Data's $30M Series A and what's next  30:36 Outro  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  17. The DOJ is investigating a16z. What does this mean for venture capital?

    8월 21일

    The DOJ is investigating a16z. What does this mean for venture capital?

    Andreessen Horowitz has two partners sitting on the boards of companies that now compete with each other: Ben Horowitz at Databricks and Martin Casado at Fivetran. Nothing too scandalous on the surface, except the Department of Justice has reportedly been investigating the arrangement for almost a year, dusting off a 112-year-old antitrust law that's rarely used against VCs.  Board conflicts aren't exactly new, and these companies weren't necessarily direct competitors when a16z first invested in them. But as portfolio companies expand into each other's markets, the DOJ's scrutiny raises a much bigger question for venture firms: How do you manage board seats when the boundaries between your portfolio companies keep moving?  On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O'Kane dig into the a16z probe, what it could mean for VCs, and more of the week’s headlines.  Listen to the full episode to hear more about:  Why Stripe paid $7.5 billion for AI model router OpenRouter, and why the “singularity” isn't the real reason  What happens to the AI companies caught in the middle as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Nvidia pull further ahead  Why Rivian spinout Also just raised $150 million to make a bigger bet on autonomous vehicles  Uber’s newest delivery partnership with drone company Zipline, and what it means for the other autonomous startups betting their futures on Uber  Whether we've reached peak valuation for AI dictation apps after Wispr's $280 million raise at a $2 billion valuation  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  1:02 TechCrunch Disrupt and the Startup Battlefield 200  3:17 The DOJ is investigating a16z over board seats  14:47 Why Stripe just paid $7.5B for “the Stripe for AI”  18:18 The mid-tier AI scramble: gateways, pivots, and acquihires  23:17 Anthropic's revenue surges while OpenAI's losses deepen  27:08 Also raises $150M and drops the “micro mobility” label  32:30 Uber teams up with Zipline for drone delivery  37:19 Wispr hits a $2B valuation  38:26 Outro  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  18. How Lucra raised $20M as an eSports play when every VC only wants AI

    5월 20일

    How Lucra raised $20M as an eSports play when every VC only wants AI

    Slapping "AI" on your startup’s pitch deck is basically table stakes right now. When a founder raised $20 million from Cathie Wood's ARK Invest for an eSports gamification loyalty startup without those two letters in the spotlight, it got us wondering how the conversation even started — especially when ARK had already been burned by a company operating in the same space.  On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Julie Bort sits down with Dylan Robbins, founder and CEO of Lucra, the white-label platform turning friendly competitions into loyalty programs for brands like golf courses, arcades, and pickleball clubs.  Listen to the full episode to hear about:  How Dylan met his ARK connection over a game of darts at a New York City bar  Why pitching a non-AI company in peak AI fundraising season meant addressing it head-on, even when it had nothing to do with his business  How being honest with investors about what wasn't working yet actually helped him close the round  Why Lucra pivoted from consumer to B2B in 45 days (and why that pivot is what convinced ARK they weren't looking at another Skillz).  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

  19. Elon Musk can't hear you over the sound of his $1.75 trillion IPO

    5월 22일

    Elon Musk can't hear you over the sound of his $1.75 trillion IPO

    The SpaceX S-1 is finally here, and the story it tells goes way further than rockets. The filing runs to 36 pages of risk factors alone, and the numbers inside match the ambition: a $28 trillion total addressable market, a pay package tied to establishing a Mars colony, and a valuation target that would make it the largest IPO in American history.  On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O'Kane dig into what the filing actually says, what it leaves out, and whether any of this math connects to reality.  Listen to the full episode to hear about:  Why NanoCo turned down a $20 million buyout to raise a $12 million seed instead  Anthropic’s acquisition of SDK startup Stainless, and why taking a tool off the table matters as much as the $300 million price tag  What happened when commencement speakers started talking up AI in front of graduating classes, and why the students weren't having it  Google’s I/O announcements claiming search as you know it is over, and what the AI makeover could mean for the open web   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

  20. ‘AI communism’, rogue models, and the why Kimi K3 spooked Wall Street

    7월 24일

    ‘AI communism’, rogue models, and the why Kimi K3 spooked Wall Street

    Chinese AI lab Moonshot's open model Kimi went viral this week for reasons that had less to do with the model itself and more to do with how the U.S. AI industry reacted to it. Meanwhile, an unreleased OpenAI model wandered outside its test environment and ended up connected to a real security breach at Hugging Face — a reminder that “China risk” isn't the only kind of AI risk worth worrying about.    On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O'Kane dig into why Kimi K3 set off a fresh round of AI panic, the industry’s response to an OpenAI staffer's “regulatory FUD” post, and what that OpenAI breach means for AI security more broadly.    Listen to the full episode to hear more about:  Why EVs are getting killed off across the U.S. even as automakers roll out new models, and how Rivian and Ford, and a wave of new startups are betting on different EV strategies to survive  What Sila's $300 million raise says about where battery investment is headed even as EV demand cools  Travis Kalanick's comeback with a $1.7 billion raise for his robotics startup, Atoms, and why we’re surprised to see Uber among its investors  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  1:39 Chinese AI model Kimi sparks a Wall Street freakout  10:45 OpenAI model breaks out of a test, Hugging Face breach  15:53 Why EVs are getting killed off in the U.S.  20:35 Tax credits, free markets, and the road ahead for EVs  28:56 Sila raises $300M for battery materials  32:20 Travis Kalanick's Atoms raises $1.7B, with Uber as an investor  36:39 Outro  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Apple의 Kate Clark