Perplexity, the AI search startup that hasn’t even cracked 100 million monthly users, just made a $34.5 billion cash offer to buy Chrome from Google. The unsolicited bid comes as the DOJ prepares its remedy decision after ruling Google illegally maintained a search monopoly. The timing makes sense, but questions remain. Perplexity won’t name its […]
Perplexity’s bid for Google Chrome could be just the beginning Read More »
A new report by the nonprofit All Raise found that the percentage of women and nonbinary individuals in partner roles at leading firms has doubled in the past few years, despite market headwinds. All Raise CEO Paige Hendrix Buckner chatted with TechCrunch’s Dominic-Madori Davis about what’s driving the shift on this week’s Equity. “There are
Women are making real progress in venture capital, and the numbers prove it Read More »
Figma managed something rare in today’s market: it survived a failed Adobe acquisition, stayed independent, and went public on its own terms. But its post-IPO performance tells a more complex story about startup exits in 2025. “This is a little bit of a meme stock,” said Jai Das, president and partner at Sapphire Ventures, on
Figma’s IPO success is ‘a little bit of a meme stock,’ says Sapphire Ventures’ Jai Das Read More »
Meta is still going all-in on the AI talent war, with Mark Zuckerberg reportedly reaching out to top recruits himself, throwing around jaw-dropping compensation packages that top $1 billion over multiple years. And Meta’s latest target? Mira Murati’s new startup, Thinking Machines Lab. It’s a bold play in an already overheated market. While Zuck eyes
From Meta’s massive offers to Anthropic’s massive valuation, does AI have a ceiling? Read More »
If you’ve been hearing about Trump’s AI Action Plan and wondering who it actually benefits, you’re not alone. On today’s episode of Equity, Rebecca Bellan caught up with Amba Kak and Dr. Sarah Myers West from the AI Now Institute, a think tank focused on the social implications of AI and the consolidation of power
Who really benefits from the AI boom? Read More »
The big AI companies seem to be in a celebratory mood after President Donald Trump unveiled his AI Action Plan — not surprising, perhaps, since the plan was shaped by Trump’s Silicon Valley allies. Today, on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Max Zeff, and Anthony Ha look at how the Trump administration plans to
Should Silicon Valley celebrate Trump’s AI plans? Read More »
AI is entering a new phase where access to top talent is becoming as important as, if not more important than, compute or data. The market for AI researchers is so overheated, it’s starting to look a lot like pro sports — complete with outsized contracts and unprecedented infrastructure needs. On today’s episode of Equity,
AI’s talent arms race is starting to look like pro sports Read More »
OpenAI’s former chief technology officer, Mira Murati, just raised one of the largest seed rounds in history. Murati secured $2 billion in that seed round for Thinking Machines Lab — a startup so early, it hasn’t even revealed what it’s working on yet. The move is raising eyebrows across Silicon Valley, and it’s only the
OpenAI, Thinking Machines Lab, and the built-in chaos of a $2B seed round Read More »
Just five days after opening up orders on its Reachy Mini robots, AI developer platform Hugging Face says it has logged $1 million worth of sales. That’s not a bad start for a company that’s just recently expanded into robotics, and is largely known for letting developers download open source AI models off the internet.
Hugging Face bets on cute robots to bring open-source AI to life Read More »
Hugging Face’s new programmable Reachy Mini bots launched this week. The AI robots are open source, Raspberry Pi-powered, and come with cartoonish antennae and big googly eyes. They don’t do much out of the box. And that’s kind of the point. Today, on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Max Zeff, and Anthony Ha dig
Hugging Face’s new robot is the Seinfeld of AI devices Read More »
