Hello everyone, it's a busy week with TechCrunch Early Stage underway and a slew of tech earnings to parse through. But that didn't stop the Equity crew from sitting down to chat about the recent wave of SPAC commentary

Danny and I wanted to talk about what a SPAC is -- the acronym stands for special purpose acquisition company -- and why everyone seems to be chatting them up.

Go SPAC yourself

The intersection of technology, startups, and venture capital touches everything now. That’s why Equity unpacks the numbers and nuance behind the headlines for entrepreneurs and enthusiasts alike.  Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, TechCrunch reporters Alex Wilhelm and Mary Ann Azevedo keep you up-to-date on the world of business, technology, and venture capital.

Equity is ranked the No.2  podcast in the Top 100 Venture Capital All time leaderboard on Goodpods—As well as No.17 for the Top 100 Finance All time chart and No.32 for the Top 100 Business News All time chart.

Technology

Tech News

Podcasting

Gadgets

Software How-To

Business

Investing

Careers

Management & Marketing

Business News

Shopping

News

Entrepreneurship

Equity is back with two critical headlines this morning. First, OpenAI is going to Japan with plans for an office in Tokyo and a new GPT-4 model for the Japanese language. Given that the US, the EU, and China are all racing for leadership in AI, OpenAI’s expansion into the Japanese market could expand the list of leading blocs and nations.

The second critical piece of news this morning comes from Tesla, which is cutting more than 10% of its total global staffing. The company told employees the cuts were due to role duplication, but with the company also cutting prices and seeing its growth ebb, demand concerns are being discussed as a partial driver for the cost cutting.

And there’s lots more going on: The upcoming Rubrik IPO is leaking early pricing ranges, ShareChat’s valuation is taking hits, and global smartphone sales are picking up. To work!

OpenAI plans new Tokyo office as Tesla layoffs arrive

Today, the Equity crew dug into Automattic buying Beeper for $125 million. Recall that the WordPress parent company bought Texts.com last year for $50 million. Elsewhere in deal-land, Proton bought Standard Notes, and we recently discussed the Wonderschool-Early Day purchase. More, please!

In the Deals of the Week column, Mary Ann chose Payjoy’s massive new run rate, while Alex wanted to riff on the Proxima Fusion round that could help bring the next energy revolution a little bit closer to reality.

And to close out, we looked at Anna Heim’s latest on Y Combinator’s evaporating number of participating startups from Latin America, which we posit could have something to do with fintech falling out of favor with investors — and fintech being the startup category that we most associated with Latin America founder activity.

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

Today on Equity’s startup-focused Wednesday show, we dug into the Multiverse's acquisition of Searchlight, a deal that reminded us of the Wonderschool-Early Day transaction that we covered on the show a few weeks back. We also dug into the latest Guesty round, which was both large and interesting from a financial perspective, the Monad Labs transaction that led us to try and explain the difference between L1 and L2 blockchains, and Cyera’s recent megaround. Stick with us through the end to hear about a new venture capital fund targeting growth-rounds in Africa!

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

Now that we are finally past Y Combinator’s demo day — though our Friday show is worth listening if you haven’t had a chance yet — we can dive into the latest news. So, this morning on Equity Monday we got into the chance that the United States might pass a real data privacy law. There’s movement to report, but we’re still very, very far from anything becoming law.

Elsewhere, the U.S. and TSMC have a new deal, there’s gaming news to consider (and a venture tie-in), and Spotify’s latest AI plans, which I am sure will delight some and annoy others. Hit play, and let’s talk about the news!

Spotify’s new AI playlists, the US’s latest chip deal, and a shot at data privacy

Today on Equity, Alex is joined by TechCrunch's Dominic-Madori Davis and Kyle Wiggers to discuss their ongoing Women in AI interview series. The pair set out to interview the women working in AI to learn more about their work, how they got into the world of artificial intelligence, and more. 

Thus far they have interviewed folks like Irene Solaiman, head of global policy at Hugging Face, Sarah Kreps, professor of government at Cornell, and Heidy Khlaaf, safety engineering director at Trail of Bits.

Go SPAC yourself

Download our free app to listen on your phone