Equity

Venture firms are turning to creators to build trust with the next generation of founders before a check is ever written. It's a trend that's been building with a16z's acquisition of Erik Torenberg’s Turpentine podcast and OpenAI's acquisition of TBPN. Lightspeed Venture Partners just made its own notable hire in that vein, bringing on Claire Zau, a seed investor with a major following on Instagram and TikTok, to source deals and co-host the firm's new show, Lightwork, alongside CMO Josh Machiz.



On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Dominic-Madori Davis is joined by Zau and Machiz to dive deep into whether the “creator-investor” is becoming a real function in venture or just something firms are still trying to figure out.



Listen to the full episode to hear more about:

How an Instagram DM turned into a hire, and why Machiz says Zau’s investing instincts (not just her follower count) made her stand out from other creators.

Why Zau thinks tech Twitter is a “minuscule” slice of the tech-curious audience, and what she's learned about public sentiment on AI that doesn't show up on X.

How Lightspeed measures ROI on a media operation that's hard to tie directly to deal flow.

The founder and portfolio-company stories that came out of Zau's content, including how a single video helped land a health-tech founder a meeting with Shaq.

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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After years of pushing full speed ahead on AI, Sam Altman says maybe it’s time for the AI industry to “pace” itself. The comments come just days after one of OpenAI's own models broke out of its test environment and got tangled up in a breach at Hugging Face, though as Equity’s hosts point out, sloppy security seems to have been just as much to blame as the model itself. Altman's not alone in this stance: both OpenAI and Anthropic have come out in support of a petition echoing that same message.



On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O'Kane dig into whether the industry is ready to pump the brakes or just spooked, and who's on the hook when a model goes rogue.



Listen to the full episode to hear more about:

The viral “Avoiding AI” workshops hosted by librarians to help people opt out of AI features they didn't ask for

How Amazon's new 5,000-satellite bid to connect directly to your phone could turn up the heat on SpaceX (even though it's unclear if anyone actually wants satellite-to-phone service)

Why somehow there's room for one more AI lab: Reid Hoffman and Mark Pincus's new startup, Prentis, is in talks to raise $100M at a $1B valuation

How Pangram raised $9 million to help publishers, teachers, and readers tell human writing from AI slop

Why DoorDash is building its own drone delivery business instead of just relying on partners like Wing and Flytrex

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

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

1:18 Zoox gets its robotaxi exemption

2:11 Sam Altman calls for pacing the frontier

6:01 The Hugging Face hack, dissected

10:12 Responsibility, regulation, and the Elon Musk wildcard

13:29 Librarians teaching people to unplug from AI

15:16 Prentice: a new AI lab raises at a $1B valuation

16:46 Amazon files for its own satellite-to-phone network

18:42 SpaceX, Blue Origin, and the launch-business angle

23:48 Pangram raises $9M to detect AI slop

29:23 DoorDash builds its own delivery drones

33:24 Outro
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With the Light Phone, Kaiwei Tang and Joe Hollier have spent over a decade exploring the value of simplicity in our relationship to technology, partnering along the way with players like Andrew Yang, Kendrick Lamar, and Pete Davidson. Now, with a new flip phone and a growing wave of “attention activists” pushing back on big tech, they think the rest of the world is finally catching up to them.



On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Amanda Silberling talks with Tang and Hollier about the company's newly announced flip phone, why they think the anti-smartphone backlash is only just getting started, and what it takes to break an addiction that fits in your pocket.

Listen to the full episode to hear more about:

How the design lessons from the original Motorola Razr shaped the new Light Flip

What the "Summer of Ludd" attention activist movement says about Gen Z's relationship with big tech

Why Light Phone is opening up an SDK so users can build their own tools instead of opting for an app store

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



Chapters:

00:00 Intro

0:51 Building Light Phone

3:10 The user shift: why people are finally ready to unplug

7:54 Designing outside the Silicon Valley bubble

9:54 Why simple tech is making a comeback (CDs, iPods, flip phones)

13:50 From the Motorola Razr to the Light Flip

17:54 Pricing and the Noble Mobile phone plan

19:44 What actually happens when you switch (and the Flip Your Life program)

23:13 Building an open-source app library for Light Phone

26:38 Outro
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Chinese AI lab Moonshot's open model Kimi went viral this week for reasons that had less to do with the model itself and more to do with how the U.S. AI industry reacted to it. Meanwhile, an unreleased OpenAI model wandered outside its test environment and ended up connected to a real security breach at Hugging Face — a reminder that “China risk” isn't the only kind of AI risk worth worrying about.



On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O'Kane dig into why Kimi K3 set off a fresh round of AI panic, the industry’s response to an OpenAI staffer's “regulatory FUD” post, and what that OpenAI breach means for AI security more broadly.



Listen to the full episode to hear more about:

Why EVs are getting killed off across the U.S. even as automakers roll out new models, and how Rivian and Ford, and a wave of new startups are betting on different EV strategies to survive

What Sila's $300 million raise says about where battery investment is headed even as EV demand cools

Travis Kalanick's comeback with a $1.7 billion raise for his robotics startup, Atoms, and why we’re surprised to see Uber among its investors

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



Chapters:



00:00 Intro

1:39 Chinese AI model Kimi sparks a Wall Street freakout

10:45 OpenAI model breaks out of a test, Hugging Face breach

15:53 Why EVs are getting killed off in the U.S.

20:35 Tax credits, free markets, and the road ahead for EVs

28:56 Sila raises $300M for battery materials

32:20 Travis Kalanick's Atoms raises $1.7B, with Uber as an investor

36:39 Outro
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Anthropic leaped to a $47 billion revenue run rate by May, compared to $9 billion in 2025. It’s the kind of growth that Menlo Ventures' Matt Murphy says he's never seen in 25 years of investing, not in the internet wave, not in mobile, not in the first cloud boom. Menlo led Anthropic's $500M Series D, and Murphy has had a front-row seat as the company went from a pre-revenue, pre-launch bet to one of the most valuable startups out there.



On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Julie Bort talks with Murphy about backing Anthropic before anyone else would, why a great model was never the point, and what's driving the fastest-growing startups he's ever seen.



Listen to the full episode to hear more about:

Why Menlo bet on Anthropic at a $4 billion pre-revenue valuation when the deal didn't fit cleanly into any of the firm's funds, and why Google and Amazon signing on as investors was an early “green shoot.”

Why Murphy says the model was never the real moat, and how Claude Code, MCP, and Claude Skills turned Anthropic from a strong model into a full platform.

Murphy's take on the backlash to Anthropic's Mythos rollout, and why he pushes back on the idea that it was more marketing than safety.

Why companies like Lovable and Legora are growing faster than any startups Murphy has seen in 25 years, and what that speed means for founders trying to compete.

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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