This week in TechCrunch podcasts: Chain Reaction, Found, Equity and The TechCrunch Live Podcast

Chain Reaction, Equity, Found
174 Episodes • Last Episode: March 29, 2024

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.

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

Chain Reaction

Episode 5: Moonbirds founder talks crypto crash and where NFTs go from here (with Kevin Rose)

Welcome back, this week Lucas and Anita discuss turmoil and heartbreak in the crypto markets as Bitcoin and Ethereum get hit hard, a number of other popular tokens get crushed and crypto-aligned public stocks like Coinbase and Robinhood see their share prices tank. What caused this bloodbath? Well, a major catalyst was the disastrous implosion of Terra’s Luna token as a result of ongoing stablecoin woes.

In their interview this week, Lucas and Anita chat with Kevin Rose. Kevin is a serial entrepreneur who founded Digg in the early 2000s and is now an investor at True Ventures and a co-founder of the Proof Collective. His startup recently raised $10 million from Seven Seven Six and launched its NFT project Moonbirds, which has quickly become one of the most popular NFT efforts out there. Listen along as we discuss the crypto crash and its fallout, and the challenges up ahead for NFTs.

Subscribe to the Chain Reaction newsletter to dive deeper.


The TechCrunch Live podcast

Episode 5: Raising monster rounds for self-driving mobility startups

Raquel Urtasun founded Waabi in 2021 after spending nearly three years as Uber’s R&D head of Advanced Technology Group (ATG). Waabi’s mission is to develop an AI-first approach to speed up the commercial deployment of autonomous vehicles, starting with long-haul trucks. To do so, her company raised an $83.5 million Series A with Khosha Venture’s Sven Strohband leading the round. Both will speak to Urtasun’s unique (and commanding) perspective, and what allowed the company to raise the massive Series A.

This event is also available on YouTube. See upcoming events here!


Found

Episode 56: Sassie Duggleby, Venus Aerospace

Sassie Duggleby is leading the team at Venus Aerospace to develop a spaceplane that could go from LA to Tokyo in an hour. As CEO, Sassie sets the tone that her team doesn’t have to adhere to the typical startup grind to solve some serious deeptech issues. She talks with Darrell and Jordan about honoring the company’s namesake — Venus, the goddess of love — and loving her customers and her employees well, all while working to bring the world closer together with greener, more efficient travel.


Equity

Episode 513: The dominoes are falling

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. Every Monday, Grace and Alex scour the news and record notes on what’s going on to kick off the week.

Happily once again we did not start the day by talking about Elon Musk and Twitter, though the news was not really very good:

  • Stocks are down sharply around the world. And crypto prices, which track larger asset prices, are also sharply lower in the last day, and week.
  • Uber’s CEO told his company that things are changing. Adjusted EBITDA is out, FCF is in. Hiring? Going to slow. Capital expenses? Those will get harder looks, and so on. During the show, we asked about the slowdown, and how it may, or may not impact the bouyant crypto startup market.
  • Neat funding rounds from Pyramid, which raised $120 million, and Paymob, which raised $50 million.

Episode 514: Tech layoffs don’t happen to companies, they happen to people

This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single topic, think about a question and unpack the rest. This week, Natasha and Alex asked: What does the most recent wave of layoffs mean for tech workers?

The question comes after Natasha’s recent Startups Weekly column, “The Great Resignation, meet the Great Reset.” In the piece, which included a roundup of recent tech layoffs, she explored the idea of employee whiplash, and why this moment in pullback is different than what we saw in March 2020.

The goal of the episode was to humanize the tech layoffs we’ve seen ripple across the startup ecosystem, from buzzy, big names like Cameo, On Deck and Robinhood, to B2B platforms like Workrise and Thrasio. As our piece last week notes, the common thread between most of these layoffs, according to founders, is that there’s been a shift in the market and a serious pivot in business is required. A pivot, that is, that hurts the employees that built your product up after high demand.

Episode 515: How close are we to understanding what’s going on?

This week we recorded live, which is always good fun, meaning that we took some questions from the audience. If you want that version of the show, we have a YouTube archive of it here.

For those of you more into audio, we have you covered here. Natasha, Alex and Grace teamed up with Julio and Yashad to host the shindig, allowing us to cover the following:

  • The end of iPod, a time to reflect on technology trends.
  • The exit of a Modern Fertility co-founder, and the MARA round bringing more money to Africa’s fintech scene.
  • From there it was onto the Terra crash, Coinbase’s earnings and the general sentiment shift in the crypto scene.
  • Next up was Tiger and the downturn in startup valuations.
  • And we closed on some personal notes.

And that’s the rundown from the week — send us a tweet if you have suggestions, or questions. Onward!

Chain Reaction, Equity, Found

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Senior Editor

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Alex Wilhelm

Senior Reporter

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Chain Reaction, Equity, Found

Episodes

When Newchip, an online accelerator promising to help startups, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March 2023, it was revealed that the company had just…

Newchip’s bankruptcy serves as a cautionary tale to founders

OpenAI gears up for a big announcement, and Apple Store workers authorize a strike

Last week was a busy one for some Apple Store employees. Over the weekend, workers at Apple’s Towson, Maryland, store — the first Apple retail store to have a formally recognized union — voted to authorize a strike. While the date of the strike is still being determined, the union has been negotiating with Apple…

OpenAI gears up for a big announcement, and Apple Store workers authorize a strike

Finally, some good news! This week, we were pleasantly surprised to see that FTX’s fraud victims would be getting some money back — even if…

Acquisitions are heating up, and Mercury eyes the fintech crown

Good news, crypto founders! Venture capital activity is picking up in the sector, recovering from the multiyear lows investments fell to in late 2023. Put…

$450M for Noname, two billion-dollar rounds, and good news for crypto startups

News that Jack Dorsey is out at Bluesky caused a stir this weekend. After all, Dorsey is a former Twitter co-founder and CEO, so his investment of…

Dorsey leaves Bluesky, tech giants do more with less, and the next IPO

The downturn in venture capital funding has impacted startups, VC firms, and accelerators alike. One company in the final category, Techstars, has been shaking up…

Inside TC’s Techstars investigation and how AI is accelerating disability tech

A new venture capital supergroup is forming

Startups are not shying away from big projects. That’s my takeaway from news that The Browser Company’s Arc browser is now generally available for Windows users, just as Island raised a massive grip of capital for its enterprise-focused browser tool. It’s very encouraging to see startups going after core pieces of technology and not just…

A new venture capital supergroup is forming

Hans Tung, a managing partner at Notable Capital, formerly GGV Capital, has a lot of thoughts on the state of venture capital today. With $4.2 billion…

Notable Capital’s Hans Tung on why founders need to play the long game

We’re off to an AI-heavy start to the week. OpenAI has a new deal with the Financial Times that caught our eye. Sure, it’s another…

Musk’s xAI shows there’s more money on the sidelines for AI startups

Good news for Rubrik, bad news for TikTok and medium news for early-stage startups

Rubrik’s strong IPO pricing and warm reception by the public markets after its listing add more weight to the perspective that the public markets are not as closed to tech startups as some thought. If Rubrik’s result isn’t enough to break the logjam, well, maybe there’s something else going on. But there was a lot more that…

Good news for Rubrik, bad news for TikTok and medium news for early-stage startups

Well, if you are a big TikTok fan and live in the United States, I have some bad news for you: A bill that would…

The TikTok ban clears key hurdle while Perplexity AI continues to shake up search

Joselyn Lai appeared on TechCrunch’s Found to discuss her company and its hopes of driving down the cost of a proven technology to address the…

Bringing down skyscrapers’ sky-high carbon footprint with Joselyn Lai from Bedrock

Equity discusses the latest market news, upcoming earnings, IPOs, and what impact — if any — the recent bitcoin halving had on its value.

Salesforce’s silly deal dies, Rubrik’s IPO, and venture capital in space

To some investors, “down round” is a dirty phrase, but not to Notable Capital’s Hans Tung. Hans is a managing partner at Notable Capital, formerly…

Notable Capital’s Hans Tung on the state of VC and the upside to down rounds

It’s been more than a minute since Tesla went public, but the EV company was inescapable on TechCrunch this week. From layoffs to pricing changes…

Tesla’s newsy week, and is fintech having a moment?

What is worth $11 billion and wants to go to Mars to collect rocks? NASA’s mission to Mars to collect rocks that was expected to…

Andreessen Horowitz’s $7.2B new funds for a ‘new era’

Founded by Louis Tremblay, FLO is looking to build robust EV charging infrastructure that will create a reliable web for drivers to get to where…

FLO is improving EV charging infrastructure

Today on Equity, Tesla cuts staff, and OpenAI has plans for an office in Tokyo along with a new GPT-4 model for the Japanese language.

OpenAI plans new Tokyo office, Tesla lays offs thousands

When it comes to news items that we love at TechCrunch, IPOs rank pretty darn high. Another great newsy bit that comes along less frequently…

Beeper acquired by Automattic, fintech’s decline and YC’s lack of LatAm founders

Today on Equity we dig into Multiverse’s acquisition of Searchlight, Guesty’s massive Series F, Monad Labs and Cyera’s mega-round.

A $60M venture fund with a twist, and more startup-on-startup acquisitions

The global demand for wood could grow by 54% between 2010 and 2050, according to a study by the World Resources Institute. While some building…

Cambium is building a recycled wood supply chain

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…

Could Congress actually pass a data privacy law?

The AI boom, love it or find it to be a bit more hype than substance, is here to stay. That means lots of companies…

What we’ve learned from the women behind the AI revolution

What a week, everyone. Two full days of Y Combinator demo day activity kept us busy, but the latest accelerator cohort’s launch was far from…

From YC to IPO: Winter 2024 Demo Day, Rubrik and Ibotta

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…

Nvidia might be clouding the funding climate for AI chip startups, but Hailo is still fighting

Nick Green, one of the company’s co-founders, stopped by Found to chat about his company and the market’s evolution since he first launched it.

Thrive Market’s Nick Green talks building a billion-dollar grocery company

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…

Ads on Discord, AT&T passcode resets and podcast changes for Android users

As AI proliferates and things on the internet are easier to manipulate, there’s a need more than ever to make sure data and brands are…

The AI world needs more data transparency and web3 startup Space and Time says it can help

Hello, and welcome to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. This is our Friday…

Databricks’ GPT rival and who’s investing in ‘underdog’ founders

Welcome to TechCrunch Crypto, formerly known as Chain Reaction. This is the last edition of this newsletter. I want to personally thank each of you…

SBF sentenced, Worldcoin hit with another ban order and big web3 pre-seed rounds are back