Equity

AI companies are spending so much on infrastructure that Nvidia's data center business now brings in nearly $50 billion. But is this sustainable growth or just the latest tech mania? And should we even be calling it a "bubble" when the belief in AI's future is what's holding the whole ecosystem together? 

This week on Equity, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O'Kane dig into Nvidia's massive earnings beat, the circular economy of AI infrastructure spending, and whether Jensen Huang's optimistic vision of AI agents handling everything in our daily lives can justify the investment. 

Listen to the full episode to hear about: 

Jeff Bezos newest venture, an AI startup called Project Prometheus. 

Suno's $2.5 billion valuation and $200 million raise despite facing lawsuits from three major music labels and what it says about investor confidence in AI music 

Waymo's expansion to new cities and approval to hit the freeways. As well as updates on Zoox and Tesla.  

Nvidia's 62% year-over-year revenue growth hitting $57 billion, and why their data center dominance makes them uniquely positioned in the AI ecosystem 

Subscribe to Equity on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. 

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While everyone's chasing the next AI infrastructure play in San Francisco, some of the most defensible AI companies are being built by founders with deep expertise in legacy industries — and they're not getting funded. January Ventures aims to fill that gap, writing pre-seed checks for underrepresented founders transforming healthcare, manufacturing, and supply chain with AI.

At TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, Dominic-Madori Davis sat down with Jennifer Neundorfer, Co-Founder and General Partner at January Ventures, for a live episode of Equity. The pair dug into how early-stage investing is changing in the age of AI and why building different networks matters. 

Listen to the full episode to hear about: 

 How AI is enabling pre-seed founders to do far more with less capital, and what that means for proof points at the earliest stages 

Why January looks for founders building for where the technology is going, not where it is today, and how market expertise is becoming a critical moat 

The state of funding for underrepresented founders in 2024, why progress has stalled despite increased awareness, and where the real opportunities lie 

Subscribe to Equity on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. 

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TechCrunch has new podcast! Build Mode brings you candid startup wisdom from the people who build, break, and build again. Build Mode is hosted by our very own Startup Battlefield Editor, Isabelle Johannessen who is joined by founders, investors, and operators to dig into the uncomfortable truths about startup life. Think cap table drama, co-founder breakups, and pivot panic.We're sharing their first episode with Forethought AI co-founder, Deon Nicholas as a weekend bonus to your feed. He shares how he built a company that puts customers (not hype) at the center and unpacks his “7-Failure Rule,” the early experiments that shaped Forethought’s success. Episodes of Build Mode drop every Thursday, and you can subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And be sure to check out the video version on TechCrunch’s YouTube.

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A new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) shows that $580 billion will be spent globally on AI data centers in 2025 alone. This is $40 billion more than will be spent on new oil supplies — leading us to conclude that data centers are the new oil fields. But is this a net positive for the environment or just a different kind of resource drain? 

On TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Rebecca Bellan dig into what this spending shift means for the energy grid, climate tech, and whether taxpayers should be footing the bill for Big Tech's infrastructure ambitions. 

Listen to the full episode to hear about: 

The anti-AI disclaimer at the end of Pluribus 

Israeli AI agent startup Wonderful's massive $100 million Series A, and why customer service might be the killer app for AI agents 

Swedish autonomous vehicle company Einride's SPAC deal — yes, SPACs are back — and whether its electric truck business can carry the autonomous pod dream 

Why OpenAI's CFO walked back comments about government "backstops" for data center loans, and what the company is actually asking for from the CHIPS Act 

The rise of government spyware targeting journalists and activists, and why mobile phone design makes it nearly impossible to detect 

How China-backed hacking groups like Salt Typhoon are "pre-positioning for sabotage" in critical infrastructure worldwide 

Disclaimer: This podcast was (also) made by humans 

Subscribe to Equity on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. 

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Many see OpenAI as the ChatGPT company while rivals like Anthropic and Cohere eye the enterprise space. Marc Manara, OpenAI's head of startups, says the reality looks different: AI-native companies are hitting $200 million in ARR, and product cycles have shrunk from two-week sprints to single days. 

Today on TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Russell Brandom sat down with Manara at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 to explore how OpenAI is serving the startups building on its platform. 

Listen to the full episode to hear about: 

The shift from two-week sprints to one-day development cycles, and what that means for how startups should structure their engineering teams 

Why some startups are customizing models for specific tasks in healthcare, finance, and other verticals that seemed out of reach 

Where AI still hasn't fully integrated with companies, and why longer-horizon autonomous tasks remain the next frontier for both models and startups 

Subscribe to Equity on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. 

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SoftBank and OpenAI announced a new 50-50 joint venture this week to sell enterprise AI tools in Japan under the brand "Crystal Intelligence." On paper, it's a straightforward international expansion deal. But SoftBank’s role as a major investor in OpenAI is raising questions about whether AI's biggest deals are creating real economic value or just moving money in circles. 

On TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha and AI editor Russell Brandom break down why this deal has people skeptical, and what it signals about the sustainability of AI's current investment model. 

Listen to the full episode to hear about: 

Andreessen Horowitz’s move to shut down its Talent x Opportunity fund, and the Equity crew’s take on the firm's explanation 

What former FTC chair Lina Khan’s role in NYC mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani's transition team could mean for Big Tech, ride-hailing, and AVs 

What Box CEO Aaron Levie had to say about whether we're in an AI bubble at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, and why the shift from training to inference might actually be reassuring 

Beta Technologies' successful $1B IPO and what it signals about the thawing public market — even though massive M&A deals are still going through 

Subscribe to Equity on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod.  

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Even Rogers spent a decade as an Air Force weapons officer watching China and Russia build space weapons while the U.S. had "nothing in our arsenal." So he left the military to solve the problem himself. 

Now, as co-founder and CEO of True Anomaly, he's building the first exclusively defense-focused space superiority company, developing autonomous spacecraft, sensors, and software designed specifically for military engagements in orbit. With $418 million raised and a growing team, Rogers is racing to field capabilities the Space Force desperately needs. 

Today on TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan sat down with Rogers to explore the emerging business of space defense and why the U.S. is playing catch-up. 

Listen to the full episode to hear about: 

How the space industry has shifted away from a service domain as threats in space evolve, and what other countries are already deploying. 

The biggest bottleneck slowing down space defense development. 

How True Anomaly's "Jackal" spacecraft is designed to evolve from surveillance to multi-role missions. 

Subscribe to Equity on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. 

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The Equity crew was live at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025! Hosts Kirsten Korosec, Max Zeff, and Anthony Ha took over the Builders Stage on Monday morning to kick off the event with the question everyone's asking: are we in an AI bubble? 

Between valuations that have tripled in months, $300M seed rounds, and $100B commitments flying around, the money is moving fast — maybe too fast. The Equity team breaks down what peak bubble looks like, where the actual business models are (spoiler: a lot of companies are betting on AI datacenters), and why some founders are betting against the scaling race entirely. 

Listen to the full episode to hear: 

Why this feels like peak bubble territory, and what the wildest funding rounds of the past month tell us about where AI is headed 

How the AI data center boom is reshaping infrastructure investing, and which unexpected players are getting in on the action 

Why Cohere's former AI research lead is going against the grain and betting against the scaling race 

What happens when a startup's viral demo becomes its entire business model (and whether that's sustainable) 

Subscribe to Equity on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. 

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After a small startup exit and being turned down by every VC firm he applied to, Tim Chen began angel investing and eventually stumbled into raising his own fund.  

Now, as the solo investor behind Essence VC, he just closed his fourth fund at $41 million "without even trying." Chen's secret weapon? Being technical enough to debate PhD founders on implementation details while understanding the market dynamics that turn scrappy startups into category leaders. 

Today on TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Julie Bort sat down with Tim Chen to explore the rise of solo VCs and who's rewriting the traditional venture playbook. 

Listen to the full episode to hear about: 

Subscribe to Equity on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod.  

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The browser wars are heating up again, this time with AI in the driver’s seat. 

OpenAI just launched Atlas, a ChatGPT-powered browser that lets users surf the web using natural language and even includes an “agent mode” that can complete tasks autonomously. It’s one of the biggest browser launches in recent memory, but it's debuting with an unsolved security flaw that could expose passwords, emails, and sensitive data. 

On TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Max Zeff, Anthony Ha and Sean O’Kane break down Atlas’s debut, the broader wave of alternative browsers, and more of the week’s startup and tech news. 

Listen to the full episode to hear about: 

Why Rivian spinoff Also just landed a massive deal with Amazon for thousands of pedal-assist cargo vehicles (and why the name is a nightmare to say in conversation) 

How Sesame, the conversational AI startup from Oculus founders, raised $250M for a product that doesn't really exist yet 

The AWS outage that broke much of the web, turned Eight Sleep mattresses into temperature nightmares, and exposed just how fragile the internet really is 

The alternative browsers that either embrace or push back against AI-everything, from privacy-focused options like DuckDuckGo and Brave to "mindful" browsers like Opera Air 

Subscribe to Equity on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. 

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