“Startup culture may be great for putting out a new app or building a successful company, but not for distributing tens of millions of people’s benefits. Real people with real interests are at stake,” says Daniel Weiner, director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Elections and Government Program. In other words, when it comes to […]
What founders need to know about tech’s growing influence in D.C. Read More »
OpenAI just made its biggest acquisition yet, scooping up Jony Ive and Sam Altman’s secretive device startup, io, in a $6.5 billion all-equity deal. Ive, the legendary designer behind the iPhone and other iconic Apple products, will now lead creative and design work at OpenAI through his firm LoveFrom. The goal? To take AI “beyond
OpenAI goes all in with Jony Ive as Google plays AI catchup Read More »
“The only thing worse than being a public company CEO is being a private company CEO right now,” says Ali Kashani, co-founder and CEO of Serve Robotics. Access to capital, he argues, is everything in robotics. And in today’s “FOMO-driven” venture climate, securing funds is far from guaranteed. Backed by Nvidia and Uber, Serve recently
Databricks just snatched up another AI company. This week, data analytics giant announced a $1 billion acquisition of Neon, a startup building an open-source alternative to AWS Aurora Postgres. It’s the latest in a spree of high-profile buys, joining MosaicML and Tabular, as Databricks positions itself as the place to build, deploy, and scale AI-native
Is $1 billion a lot of money these days? Read More »
Despite courtroom chaos, Rippling is still going full steam ahead. The HR tech startup at the center of an increasingly dramatic legal battle with rival Deel just raised a fresh $450 million in funding at a $16.8 billion valuation, and launched a new “Startup Stack” to woo early-stage companies—winning over Y Combinator as both an
Unpacking Rippling vs Deel: corporate espionage and a $16.8B plot twist Read More »
At Stripe’s Sessions conference this week, Mark Zuckerberg pitched what he calls the “ultimate business machine”: a fully automated, end-to-end AI ad engine promising to replace agencies, creatives, and media buyers with a single black box. You just need to connect your bank account first. Zuckerberg claims this could be one of the most valuable
Meta’s speeding up the ‘Mad Men to Math Men’ pipeline Read More »
What if cheating was just…the future of work? That’s the pitch behind Cluely, the viral AI startup that claims its stealthy browser overlay is “undetectable” and can help users bluff their way through everything from job interviews to exams. The company has raised $5.3 million and sparked a wave of backlash from startups building tools
Damn, the Cluely ragebait got us Read More »
Retail investors are increasingly shaping the secondary market. In Q4 2024, platforms like EquityZen reported that 86% of total transaction volume came from retail participants—an eye-catching shift as tools like Forge and EquityZen promise broader access to private shares. But does more access mean more opportunity, or more risk? Today on Equity, Rebecca Bellan is
The rise of retail investors in secondaries, and why delayed IPOs will become the norm Read More »
It’s feeling a lot like Groundhog Day for Google, which once again finds itself in court over its dominance in search and ads. The tech giant already lost one big antitrust case and is now facing another, but the latest trial comes with some twists, including OpenAI exec Nick Turley testifying this week that his
Big Tech’s antitrust cases are starting to feel like Groundhog Day Read More »
Trump’s tariffs have upended global trade and created an environment of uncertainty. But this situation wasn’t created in a vacuum. The rules of business have been shifting for years as technology moves quicker than regulation, geopolitics descend into turmoil, and the law erodes and becomes weaponized. Businesses might be asking themselves, how are they meant
How to survive and thrive as tariffs, AI, and politics unsettle the rules of business Read More »
