Equity podcast

Meta’s Llama drama and how Trump’s tariffs could hit moonshot projects

AI /

Meta dropped three new models over the weekend: Scout, Maverick, and the still-training Behemoth, billed as the next evolution of “open-ish” AI. But instead of excitement, the response was mostly shrugs. Critics called the release underwhelming, saying it lacked the edge expected in today’s breakneck AI race. Meta’s clear attempt to claw back some attention […]

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Spy games in HR tech: Inside Rippling’s wild lawsuit against Deel

Startups /

Rippling’s latest lawsuit reads less like a legal filing and more like the plot of a corporate espionage thriller, complete with secret crypto payments, an alleged mole, and a fake Slack channel trap. This week, the HR tech startup publicly named the employee at the center of its case against its rival Deel, claiming the

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Startup Battlefield winner Salva Health is changing the game in breast cancer detection

Biotech & Health /

Six years ago, while researching for a college entrepreneurship competition, Valentina Agudelo identified a troubling gap in breast cancer survival rates between Latin America and the developed world: women in her native Colombia and the rest of South America are dying at higher rates due to late detection.  Today, Agudelo is the co-founder and CEO

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OpenAI is aiming for AGI but landing on Studio Ghibli

Startups /

OpenAI is reportedly nearing completion of a massive $40 billion funding round, with SoftBank leading the way. But this week, it wasn’t just the company funding news making headlines— its new image generator went live in ChatGPT, with capabilities including the ability to turn ordinary images into Studio Ghibli-style animation stills. While AI-generated art often

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Bradley Tusk says VC is dead. But the ‘fixer’ in him is just getting started

Venture /

According to Bradley Tusk, co-founder and managing partner of Tusk Venture Partners, venture capital has been “effectively dead for the last four years.” A self-proclaimed “Fixer,” Tusk recently made the decision not to raise a fourth fund. Instead, he decided to go back to his roots and launch an equity-for-services firm aimed at helping early

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‘Every software company is an AI company now,’ says AngelList CEO Avlok Kohli

Startups /

“The enthusiasm into AI actually carries over into everything, which effectively impacts all startups,” said AngelList CEO Avlok Kohli when asked if investors remain as excited about emerging startups outside of AI. According to Kohli, AI startups make up nearly 40% of the startups on AngelList’s platform. Today on Equity, Mary Ann Azevedo caught up

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OpenAI and Microsoft’s ‘frenemies relationship,’ and what you missed at SXSW

AI /

This week, OpenAI inked a five-year, $11.9 billion deal with CoreWeave, the GPU-heavy cloud provider, securing its own AI computing pipeline—and a $350 million equity stake in the company. With CoreWeave’s pending IPO and deep ties to Microsoft, OpenAI’s deal marks a significant shift in the AI cloud wars. Today, on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts

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The California AI bill is back…and it lost its teeth

Government & Policy /

California’s most controversial AI safety bill of 2024 might be dead, but its author isn’t backing down. State Senator Scott Weiner is back with SB 53, a new AI bill that strips away the most debated parts of last year’s failed legislation while keeping key whistleblower protections and a public cloud computing initiative called CalCompute.

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Is Silicon Valley still the best place for startups? Insight Partners’ Ryan Hinkle doesn’t think so

Venture /

“Silicon Valley is not a necessary and sufficient condition for success—it’s just one option,” says Ryan Hinkle, challenging the long-held belief that the Bay Area is the ultimate startup hub.  Hinkle is a Managing Director at Insight Partners, the giant New York-based venture capital firm that invests in tech worldwide. It has $90 billion in

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