Startups

TechCrunch podcasts this week: Layoffs, the crypto downturn, investor offense and Columbus, Ohio

Comment

TechCrunch is more than just a site with words. We’re also building a growing stable of podcasts focused on the most critical topics relating to the startup and venture capital worlds. To help you find the right show for your interests, we’ve compiled our audio output from the week.

Embedded below is the latest from Chain Reaction, our new and stellar crypto-focused podcast hosted by Lucas and Anita. You will also find Found, a long-form bit of work that goes deep on the real saga of company formation, from Jordan and Darrell. There’s an audio-only version of TechCrunch Live hosted by Matt that features founders and investors discussing successful pitch decks. Finally, there’s Equity, TechCrunch’s long-running, Webby-award-winning podcast focused on venture capital and the latest startup news, hosted by Natasha, Mary Ann and Alex.

And if you are more into the written over the spoken word, well we have newsletters on the above topics as well.

The TechCrunch Podcast

Episode 3: Why do people keep giving Adam Neumann money? And other TechCrunch news

Welcome back to The TechCrunch Podcast, where you’ll hear everything you need to know about the week’s top stories in tech from the people who wrote them. This week our host, Managing Editor Darrell Etherington, talks with Natasha Mascarenhas about the ongoing tech layoffs, Anita Ramaswamy about WeWork founder Adam Neumann moving into the crypto space with backing from a16z, and Devin Coldewey about AI-generated images. Plus a rundown of the week’s top news on TechCrunch.

Articles from the episode:

Other news from the week:

Extras:


The TechCrunch Live Podcast

Episode 6: How Olive pivoted 27 times on its way to be worth $4 billion

Olive is a homegrown Columbus, Ohio unicorn; hear from the CEO and lead investor how the company was founded and grew into an industry leader.

Sean Lane co-founded Olive in 2012, and signed on Chris Olsen from Drive Capital as the company’s first investors. Now, nearly 10 years later, Olive has raised $856.3 million on its way to being a driving force in using artificial intelligence in the healthcare industry. But the company’s path to success wasn’t a straight line. As CEO Sean Lane explains on this special TechCrunch Live event, the company pivoted 27 times before finding its current product market fit.

Lane explains the strategy behind changing a company’s direction and the emotional toil it takes on everyone involved — from employees to executives to the investors.

Want to watch the panel: Here’s the YouTube video.


Chain Reaction

Episode 8: Outdoor Voices’ founder on scaling a new crypto startup in a downturn (with Ty Haney)

Welcome back, this week Lucas and Anita argue about Coinbase’s latest management strategies, whether Do Kwon being called the new Bernie Madoff is a fair comparison, and why the OnlyFans founder is the latest web2 entrepreneur pivoting to crypto.

In their interview this week, Anita and Lucas chat with Ty Haney. Haney is the founder of athleisure empire Outdoor Voices, though she’s recently departed the company to start a new effort around getting brands to embrace NFTs. We chatted with her about founding a crypto startup in a downturn, keeping her company well-capitalized and how she pivoted from yoga pants to non-fungible tokens.

Subscribe to the Chain Reaction newsletter to dive deeper: https://techcrunch.com/newsletters

Helpful links:


Found

Episode 60: Claire Coder, Aunt Flow

Claire Coder, founder and CEO of Aunt Flow joined us on Found Live. Darrell, Jordan and Claire got into how she landed on a B2B model for Aunt Flow and the importance of free, accessible period products — which is something she often has to educate prospective investors or customers on. Claire also opened up about how she has grown as a leader, learned to listen to feedback from her team, and improved the culture at Aunt Flow.  And don’t forget to hear from more founders from Columbus, Ohio.

Up next on Found Live is WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg.

Connect with us:

  • On Twitter
  • On Instagram
  • Via email: found@techcrunch.com
  • Call us and leave a voicemail at (510) 936-1618

Equity

Episode 524: Sheryl Sandberg, Substack and the art of still raising money for groceries

This was another live week from the Equity crew, meaning that the towering Mary Ann, the inimitable Natasha and the somewhat fungible Alex were all chatting in real time, thanks to Grace and Julio having the script and tech in place to allow for it. And as we were live, we also wound up taking a little bit more time per story than usual, which was good fun.

What did we get into? A lot:

  • The end of an era: Sandberg steps down from Meta COO role.
  • Deals of the Week: Affirm ties up with Stripe, Felt raises $15 million for maps, and Astro proves that quick grocery delivery is still a thing.
  • new fund is coming from an alum of Precursor Ventures, a firm that we have covered extensively on the podcast.
  • The latest from Substack, a startup that we nearly all use, but wonder about from a valuations perspective.
  • And we wrapped with notes from our recent spotlight on Columbus, Ohio!

Equity is mostly off next week, meaning no Monday show, and some pre-taped stuff the rest of the week. We’re going to breathe, and come back recharged. Hugs, and chat soon!

Episode 523: How investors are playing offense right now (their words, our two cents)

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.

This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single topic, think about a question and unpack the rest. This week, we’re trying something new. Natasha spent a good chunk of last week at the All Raise VC summit, an annual off-the-record event that brings together some of the best and brightest in the investment community. After the summit, she sat down with Mandela SH Dixon — All Raise’s new CEO — to unpack what happened, and discuss how today’s changing venture capital market will impact diverse founders.

The first half of this episode is a conversation between Natasha and Mandela, and then we’ll bring on Alex and turn to some on-the-ground clips from the summit. Sound bytes from Freestyle’s Jenny LefcourtJanuary Ventures’ Jennifer NeundorferRethink Impact’s Heidi Patel and Union Square Ventures’ Rebecca Kaden will get the classic Equity treatment. Or, put differently, Alex and Natasha will react to top investors talking about their game plans for the next market cycle. It’s fun!

Episode 522: Faster ML models, crypto M&A, and what’s ahead for on-demand pricing

It’s Monday, which means that Alex and Grace were back as a team to cover the biggest, boldest and baddest technology news. We are once again back with your weekly kickoff! Here’s what we got into:

  • More on the potential M&A boom this week, in light of this recent CNBC piece that got my mind turning. Sure, this is kinda like the CVC story we’ve been tracking but a bit more focused.
  • China’s venture capital market is taking body-blows, albeit from recent highs. Still, it is more than easy to track the country’s regulatory crackdown to falling venture capital activity.
  • Strong Compute raised money, highlighting the fact that early-stage companies can still raise, and that there could be huge unlocks coming in ML model training. Which would be good for all of us.
  • And is on-demand pricing on the way out? Things aren’t looking good for the model that once challenged the incumbency of SaaS.

 

More TechCrunch

Waymo’s autonomous vehicle software is under investigation after federal regulators received 22 reports where the robotaxis crashed or “potentially violated traffic safety laws” by driving in the wrong lane or…

Waymo’s robotaxis under investigation after crashes and traffic mishaps

Sona, a workforce management platform for frontline employees, has raised $27.5 million in a Series A round of funding. More than two-thirds of the U.S. workforce are reportedly in frontline…

Sona, a frontline workforce management platform, raises $27.5M with eyes on US expansion

Uber Technologies announced Tuesday that it will buy the Taiwan unit of Delivery Hero’s Foodpanda for $950 million in cash. The deal is part of Uber Eats’ strategy to expand…

Uber to acquire Foodpanda’s Taiwan unit from Delivery Hero for $950M in cash 

Paris-based Blisce has become the latest VC firm to launch a fund dedicated to climate tech. It plans to raise as much as €150M (about $162M).

Paris-based VC firm Blisce launches climate tech fund with a target of $160M

Maad, a B2B e-commerce startup based in Senegal, has secured $3.2 million debt-equity funding to bolster its growth in the western Africa country and to explore fresh opportunities in the…

Maad raises $3.2M seed amid B2B e-commerce sector turbulence in Africa

The fresh funds were raised from two investors who transferred the capital into a special purpose vehicle, a legal entity associated with the OpenAI Startup Fund.

OpenAI Startup Fund raises additional $5M

Accel has invested in more than 200 startups in the region to date, making it one of the more prolific VCs in this market.

Accel has a fresh $650M to back European early-stage startups

Kyle Vogt, the former founder and CEO of self-driving car company Cruise, has a new VC-backed robotics startup focused on household chores. Vogt announced Monday that the new startup, called…

Cruise founder Kyle Vogt is back with a robot startup

When Keith Rabois announced he was leaving Founders Fund to return to Khosla Ventures in January, it came as a shock to many in the venture capital ecosystem — and…

From Miles Grimshaw to Eva Ho, venture capitalists continue to play musical chairs

On the heels of OpenAI announcing the latest iteration of its GPT large language model, its biggest rival in generative AI in the U.S. announced an expansion of its own.…

Anthropic is expanding to Europe and raising more money

If you’re looking for a Starliner mission recap, you’ll have to wait a little longer, because the mission has officially been delayed.

TechCrunch Space: You rock(et) my world, moms

Apple devoted a full event to iPad last Tuesday, roughly a month out from WWDC. From the invite artwork to the polarizing ad spot, Apple was clear — the event…

Apple iPad Pro M4 vs. iPad Air M2: Reviewing which is right for most

Terri Burns, a former partner at GV, is venturing into a new chapter of her career by launching her own venture firm called Type Capital. 

GV’s youngest partner has launched her own firm

The decision to go monochrome was probably a smart one, considering the candy-colored alternatives that seem to want to dazzle and comfort you.

ChatGPT’s new face is a black hole

Apple and Google announced on Monday that iPhone and Android users will start seeing alerts when it’s possible that an unknown Bluetooth device is being used to track them. The…

Apple and Google agree on standard to alert people when unknown Bluetooth devices may be tracking them

The company is describing the event as “a chance to demo some ChatGPT and GPT-4 updates.”

OpenAI’s ChatGPT announcement: Watch here

A human safety operator will be behind the wheel during this phase of testing, according to the company.

GM’s Cruise ramps up robotaxi testing in Phoenix

OpenAI announced a new flagship generative AI model on Monday that they call GPT-4o — the “o” stands for “omni,” referring to the model’s ability to handle text, speech, and…

OpenAI debuts GPT-4o ‘omni’ model now powering ChatGPT

Featured Article

The women in AI making a difference

As a part of a multi-part series, TechCrunch is highlighting women innovators — from academics to policymakers —in the field of AI.

18 hours ago
The women in AI making a difference

The expansion of Polar Semiconductor’s facility would enable the company to double its U.S. production capacity of sensor and power chips within two years.

White House proposes up to $120M to help fund Polar Semiconductor’s chip facility expansion

In 2021, Google kicked off work on Project Starline, a corporate-focused teleconferencing platform that uses 3D imaging, cameras and a custom-designed screen to let people converse with someone as if…

Google’s 3D video conferencing platform, Project Starline, is coming in 2025 with help from HP

Over the weekend, Instagram announced that it is expanding its creator marketplace to 10 new countries — this marketplace connects brands with creators to foster collaboration. The new regions include…

Instagram expands its creator marketplace to 10 new countries

You can expect plenty of AI, but probably not a lot of hardware.

Google I/O 2024: What to expect

The keynote kicks off at 10 a.m. PT on Tuesday and will offer glimpses into the latest versions of Android, Wear OS and Android TV.

Google I/O 2024: How to watch

Four-year-old Mexican BNPL startup Aplazo facilitates fractionated payments to offline and online merchants even when the buyer doesn’t have a credit card.

Aplazo is using buy now, pay later as a stepping stone to financial ubiquity in Mexico

We received countless submissions to speak at this year’s Disrupt 2024. After carefully sifting through all the applications, we’ve narrowed it down to 19 session finalists. Now we need your…

Vote for your Disrupt 2024 Audience Choice favs

Co-founder and CEO Bowie Cheung, who previously worked at Uber Eats, said the company now has 200 customers.

Healthy growth helps B2B food e-commerce startup Pepper nab $30 million led by ICONIQ Growth

Booking.com has been designated a gatekeeper under the EU’s DMA, meaning the firm will be regulated under the bloc’s market fairness framework.

Booking.com latest to fall under EU market power rules

Featured Article

‘Got that boomer!’: How cybercriminals steal one-time passcodes for SIM swap attacks and raiding bank accounts

Estate is an invite-only website that has helped hundreds of attackers make thousands of phone calls aimed at stealing account passcodes, according to its leaked database.

23 hours ago
‘Got that boomer!’: How cybercriminals steal one-time passcodes for SIM swap attacks and raiding bank accounts

Squarespace is being taken private in an all-cash deal that values the company on an equity basis at $6.6 billion.

Permira is taking Squarespace private in a $6.9 billion deal