Equity

Artificial intelligence models are multiplying fast, and competition is stiff. With so many players crowding the space, which one will be the best — and who decides that? Arena, formerly LM Arena, has emerged as the de facto public leaderboard for frontier LLMs, influencing funding, launches, and PR cycles. In just seven months, the startup went from a UC Berkeley PhD research project to being valued at $1.7 billion. 

On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan catches up with Arena co-founders Anastasios Angelopoulos and Wei-Lin Chiang to determine how a team like theirs can build a neutral benchmark when the companies they’re ranking are also their backers. 

Listen to the full episode to hear: 


How Arena actually works, and why its founders say you can't game it the way you mighta static benchmark. 


What "structural neutrality" actually means, and whether taking money from OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic is a conflict of interest. 


How Arena is moving beyond chat to benchmark agents, coding, and real-world tasks with a new enterprise product. 


Why Claude is currently winning the expert leaderboard for legal and medical use cases. 


Arena's bet on what comes after LLMs, and why agents are next on the leaderboard. 

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 

03:00 How Arena's leaderboard works, and why it's different from static benchmarks 

07:00 Reproducibility concerns and how to scale 

08:45 Can Arena stay independent while taking money from the labs it ranks? 

11:15 Diversity, fraud prevention, and abuse mitigation 

18:15 Arena's "data moat" 

19:20 Agent benchmarking and expert leaderboards 

21:40 Open sourcing data 

22:45 How do Arena's rankings shape AI development? 

24:15 Outro 
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

According to Index Ventures Partner Shardul Shah, cybersecurity startup Wiz sits “at the center of three tailwinds: AI, cloud, and security spend.” Those tailwinds powered what just became the largest venture-backed acquisition in history — Google's $32 billion deal, finalized after a declined 2024 offer, antitrust review on both sides of the Atlantic, and an extra $9 billion to sweeten the pot. 

 

On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Anthony Ha, Rebecca Bellan, and Sean O'Kane sit down with Shah to dig into what made Wiz worth that price tag, and also cover more of the week's headlines. 

 

Listen to the full episode to hear about: 


Why a DOGE employee allegedly walked out of the Social Security Administration with a thumb drive full of personal data, and the questions it raises about access to sensitive systems 


Taya and Sandbar, the latest startups betting voice is the next big AI interface — but do normal consumers agree? 


Palmer Luckey raising for a retro gaming startup at a $1 billion valuation 


Meta’s acquisition of Moltbook, the viral AI agent social network 


The latest in the Anthropic vs. DoD saga, including tech workers at OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft signing their names on a legal brief in support of Anthropic 

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 

00:16 Did a DOGE employee steal your SSN? 

02:53 AI note-taking wearables are back: Taya & Sandbar 

09:18 Palmer Lucky's retro gaming startup ModRetro 

13:39 Meta acquires AI agent social network Moltbot 

18:54 Inside Google's $32B Wiz acquisition with Shardul Shah 

28:41 Anthropic's lawsuit against the DoD 

38:40 Outro 
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For years, venture capitalists have been skeptical of beverage startups, citing thin margins and brutal distribution as reasons most brands never break out. But a new wave of “functional soda” companies has been challenging that assumption, including Poppi, the prebiotic soda brand that grew from a kitchen experiment into a $1.95 billion acquisition by PepsiCo. 

On this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan is joined by Poppi co-founder Allison Ellsworth to talk about building a beverage startup in a venture world dominated by SaaS and AI. From pitching on Shark Tank while nine months pregnant to scaling a digital-first brand during COVID, and now returning as a Shark herself, Ellsworth shares how social media, fast marketing bets, and customer feedback helped turn a niche drink into a category-defining company. 

Listen to the full episode to hear about: 


Ellsworth’s Shark Tank return, and how she evaluates founders on the other side of the pitch. 


How Ellsworth turned a personal health issue into Poppi and built early traction at farmers' markets. 


Why TikTok and community-driven marketing helped the brand rack up billions of views and loyal fans. 


The risky decision to buy a last-minute Super Bowl ad, and how the team executed it in days. 


What it’s like selling a startup to PepsiCo while trying to preserve the brand’s identity. 


Why beverage startups almost inevitably need acquisition-level distribution to scale. 

Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. 
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Pentagon has officially designated Anthropic a supply-chain risk after the two failed to agree on how much control the military should have over its AI models, including its use in autonomous weapons and mass domestic surveillance. As Anthropic’s $200 million contract fell apart, the DoD turned to OpenAI instead, which accepted and then watched ChatGPT uninstalls surge 295%. As the stakes keep rising, the question remains: how much unrestricted access should the military have to an AI model? 

 

On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O'Kane dig into what startups should think about when chasing federal contracts, especially when nobody seems to know what to do with AI in Washington, and more of the week's headlines. 

 

Listen to the full episode to hear more about: 


Paramount’s massive deal with Warner Bros, and the Equity crew’s ideas for what the new HBO Max-Paramount+ hybrid should be called 


MyFitnessPal's acquisition of Cal AI, the calorie-tracking app built by teenagers 


Who dropped $1 billion on Pinterest’s AI mission and how the company spent it on share buybacks. (Spoiler: Kirsten has thoughts.) 


Anduril is raising again at a reported $60 billion valuation 


Whether companies should brace themselves for the SaaSpocalypse, or if it’s just another chapter of the AI hype cycle  

Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. 
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Does a consumer hardware company need to get on the VC treadmill to succeed? Eleven years and 290 million products sold across 115 countries later, PopSockets has proven that the bootstrapped, low-dilution path more viable than the industry gives it credit for. The global consumer hardware brand was built on less than $500k, no institutional capital, and a philosophy professor's determination. 

   

On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Dominic-Madori Davis caught up with founder and former CEO of PopSockets David Barnett to talk about how he scaled from a Boulder garage, stood up to Amazon at a $10–20 million cost, and eventually handed off the CEO role to someone who'd grown up inside the company. 

 

Listen to the full episode to hear: 


How a house fire and some insurance money became the unlikely seed funding for a global brand 


What nearly sinking the company in manufacturing defects actually taught him about building one that lasts 


How ignoring his investors' advice turned out to be the right call 


What he looked for in a successor CEO (and why culture was non-negotiable) 


What he'd do completely differently if he launched PopSockets today 

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 

01:15 From philosophy professor to phone grip inventor 

05:17 How a house fire funded PopSockets 

07:33 Manufacturing nightmares nearly killed the business 

10:08 The local toy store that proved it could work 

13:14 The $20M Amazon standoff 

16:09 Growing too fast? 

18:20 Beating counterfeits in China through brand building 

19:11 Why David never wanted to be CEO 

23:07 The worst advice received, and what to do instead 

26:35 Outro 
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices