Equity

Amulya Vishwanath, who spent seven years leading product marketing for NVIDIA’s robotics platforms, says robotics is currently in its “Lego era,” with the basic building blocks like actuators, robotic hands, software, and safety standards still being rebuilt.

This view runs counter to those who believe that robotics, powered by a general foundation model, is about to have its “ChatGPT moment” — that day when the shockingly capable chatbot was launched in late 2022. (General Intuition CEO Pim de Witte told Equity earlier this year that a single general foundation model would make much of today’s specialized robotics work redundant, and be that moment.)

On this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Dominic-Madori Davis caught up with Vishwanath to discuss where she’s writing first checks as the founder and managing partner of Techable VC. They also talked about what she’s learned as one of the first women executives to spin out of Nvidia and launch her own early-stage firm investing in physical AI across robotics, materials science, and life sciences.

Listen to the full episode to hear more about:

Why Vishwanath defines physical AI as more than robots: “a molecule, a material, a medicine,” or a machine on a factory line.

What she means by “conscious automation.”

Why the best opportunities solve big problems like family-run factories that can't find workers to surgeons facing burnout.

Why she wants founders to see their VC as their moat, and how years at NVIDIA built the network she now uses for due diligence and customer introductions.

Where she thinks the U.S. and China each have the edge, and why humanoids should be good for more than dancing.

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

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

01:03 Amulya’s path from Intel to Nvidia, and why she left

04:39 What physical AI meant in 2018 vs. now

06:12 Beyond dancing robots: industrial and surgical use cases

09:31 What “conscious automation” means

12:12 Cutting through the hype: the “Lego era” of robotics

16:43 Why your VC should be your moat

20:30 Biggest bottlenecks for physical AI founders

22:30 U.S. vs. China in physical AI

25:43 Are humanoids just for entertainment?

28:10 The most promising near-term areas

29:22 Outro
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The Equity crew was live at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026! Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O’Kane took over the Builders Stage Tuesday morning to tackle a growing challenge for the AI industry: what happens when AI agents go off-script, and who’s responsible for keeping them in check?

Recent incidents, from Anthropic pulling internal evaluations off the live internet after agents misbehaved to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella calling for an “emergency brake” on AI models, have brought agent security into focus. The Equity team unpacked whether the problem calls for better engineering, new regulation, or both, and why startups are raising millions to secure AI agents.

Listen to the full episode to hear more about:

The Anthropic agent mishaps, including a false police report that went nowhere after landing in a spam folder

Nadella’s call for an AI emergency brake, and why the hosts wonder what took so long

The funding race to secure AI agents, from AIR’s $50 million raise to Reco’s $55 million and Oak’s $60 million for agent identity, plus Sequoia-backed Cymphony

Why independent verification and certification could be key to building trust, and whether Big Tech will buy its way out of the problem

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

Chapters:



00:00 Intro and what we’re excited for at Disrupt

01:34 Durability, security, and Anthropic’s rogue agents

04:41 Nadella’s “emergency brake” post

06:33 NVIDIA’s OpenShell and the engineering-vs-regulation debate

10:04 The agent security startup boom: AIR, Reco, Cymphony

13:38 When agents go rogue in real life

15:55 Certifications and standards

19:33 HiddenLayer and the jump to production

20:40 Will Big Tech just acquire these startups?

22:52 Consumer trust and agent adoption

25:05 Predictions: acquisitions vs. independent verifiers

27:26 What’s coming up at Disrupt

29:02 Outro
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Amazon says it will stop using NDAs when negotiating data center deals with local governments, following a similar move from Microsoft earlier this year. Secrecy has fueled community backlash against AI infrastructure, with opposition leading to hundreds of proposed and enacted moratoriums from New York to San Francisco. Meanwhile, a wave of startups is betting that consumers will hand AI agents access to their inboxes, files, and credit cards — if they can get websites to let them in.

On this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Anthony Ha, Sean O’Kane, and Rebecca Bellan dig into whether ditching NDAs will change how data center deals get done, why trust may be the real product for personal AI startups, plus a couple of deals of the week.

Listen to the full episode to hear more about:

The White House’s plans to make plans with its new Super Intelligence Force

Ghost’s $3,499 computer built to run AI agents around the clock, and why the Equity crew doesn’t see it going mass market

Tab, Underdog, and Hark pitching privacy as their product, plus the business model that could turn your agent into a salesperson

United, Apple, and Amazon putting up walls against outside agents

Lambda’s reported $4 billion raise, and the single customer behind $35 billion of its backlog

Uber’s $2.3 billion all-cash deal to get into the office catering space with ezCater

We’ll see you next week at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026! Get 25% off your tickets with code Equity25, and we’ll see you on the Builders Stage Tuesday at 9 am.

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

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

0:55 Trump’s “superintelligence force” and the great AI rebranding

3:19 Amazon drops NDAs on data center deals

9:17 Why the AI industry has a communication problem

12:51 Personal AI agents: finding money in your inbox

15:27 Ghost’s $3,500 computer built for personal AI

19:16 Trust is the product: privacy-first agent startups

27:36 Lambda’s $4B raise and the neo cloud backlog problem

31:22 Uber’s $2.3B move into catering

35:10 Outro
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Tristan Walker and Brynn Putnam both built and sold major consumer companies. Now, they’re building products designed to bring people together.

Today on Equity, we’re bringing you a conversation TechCrunch AI editor Russell Brandom had on stage at the latest StrictlyVC event in New York. Russell sat down with Walker, who sold Bevel maker Walker & Company to Procter & Gamble and is now building leathercraft trade school Heirloom, and Putnam, who sold fitness startup Mirror to Lululemon and is now CEO of Board, a touchscreen console that combines board games and video games.

The two repeat founders talk about what they learned from their first companies, why they’re focused on physical skills and shared experiences now, and how AI could make hands-on, human connection more valuable rather than less. Walker explains why he sees growing demand for mastery and trade skills, while Putnam talks about using technology to bring people together instead of pulling them into individual screens.

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

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This week, the White House got nearly every major tech CEO in one room — Zuckerberg, Bezos, Musk, and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei among them — to sign an AI safety pledge that President Donald Trump called “morally binding.” Trump also signed an executive order officially rebranding AI as “super intelligence,” and meanwhile, Meta and OpenAI are putting friendlier faces on their AI products, even as the biggest money in AI still appears to be coming from the enterprise.



On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O’Kane dig into this week’s AI moves, the ugly economics of consumer AI, plus the shifting IPO market and a handful of startup deals.



Listen to the full episode to hear more about:

What Oura pulling its IPO, plus Anthropic’s leaked S-1 and OpenAI going back to private funding, says about how picky public markets have gotten

Quartermaster’s $140M raise to bring real-time sensors to an industry that AI basically hasn’t touched yet: maritime shipping

Why Atomic, a supply-chain startup from ex-Tesla vets, is already running 90% of DoorDash’s purchasing

How Startup Battlefield finalist Charter Space raised $5M to bring insurance to satellites

Speaking of Startup Battlefield, join us at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, where Equity will kick things off with a live show on the Builders Stage at 9 a.m. Get 25% off your tickets with code Equity25.



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