Equity podcast

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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Growth at all costs is destroying the internet. PR maven Ed Zitron says that’s an opportunity for startups.

Startups /

If you spend any amount of time online, you probably noticed that your user experience keeps getting worse.  Websites are waterlogged with autoplay ads, pop-ups, and tracking scripts. Customer service chatbots are useless, despite the promises of generative AI. Social media algorithms boost rage-bait to keep you scrolling and engaged. Dating apps hide all the

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Every year, it seems like there’s at least one big YC controversy

AI /

Optifye.ai, a Y Combinator-backed startup, sparked massive social media backlash this week after its demo went viral. The video, which shows how the company’s AI-powered cameras track factory workers in real-time, quickly caught fire online, with criticism flooding in on X and Hacker News. In the clip, a supervisor calls out an underperforming worker, sparking

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How Gradient Ventures is Shaping the AI Startup Landscape with Eylul Kayin

AI /

“AI startups are like rockets — they need to launch fast, but they also need to be built to last,” says Gradient Ventures partner Eylul Kayin, who works on everything from seed-stage investments to helping companies scale. Today on Equity, Mary Ann Azevedo sits down with Eylul to explore the fast-evolving world of AI startups.

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