Equity

The internet has a trust problem, and it’s not just because social media feeds are filling up with AI slop. AI-generated text and images are now making their way into job applications, product reviews, and even insurance claims, leaving platforms and users alike scrambling to figure out what’s real.

A handful of startups have cropped up in the past couple of years to become the “trust layer” the internet needs — including Pangram. The startup recently snapped up $9 million for its AI detection system and landed a partnership with Substack, which is now using Pangram’s tech to show readers which of their favorite authors use AI to write their newsletters. Pangram also recently dropped a new AI image detection tool.

On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Pangram co-founder and CEO Max Spero joins Rebecca Bellan to dig into the promise of AI detection tools and where to draw the line between AI assisted and AI generated.

Listen to the full episode to hear more about:

Why Spero thinks the internet could be “dangerously close” to the dead internet theory becoming reality within a few years.

Why figuring out how much AI went into something is harder — and potentially more useful — than simply labeling it AI or human.

The stakes of getting AI detection wrong, especially when false positives involve sensitive images.

Why Spero thinks the “bottom tier” of writing jobs may be gone for good, while genuinely good human writing could become more valuable.

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

1:15 Building Pangram: from binary detector to gauging AI assistance

2:06 Why job applications, reviews, and Amazon are drowning in slop

5:39 How Pangram actually spots AI writing

9:26 Where people draw the line on AI-assisted vs. AI-generated

12:50 The false positive problem, and "America has a Pangram problem"

14:30 Detecting fake images, now that AI photos are scarily good

19:13 Competing with GPTZero, Winston, and building "core infrastructure"

21:43 Will good writing jobs actually come back?

23:36 Outro
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Earlier this week, Meta agreed to pay $18 billion and make sweeping changes to how minors access its social networks to settle a lawsuit brought by 29 states. But the eye-popping settlement figure wasn't what caught the attention of the Equity podcast team. Instead, it was what Meta did next. The social media giant sent an open letter to TikTok and YouTube asking the companies to join it in setting industry-wide standards for teens, including daily time limits, blocking access to apps at night, and restricting notifications during school hours.

But will these other companies follow? The Equity team doesn't think they will.

On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan, Kirsten Korosec, and Sean O'Kane dig into the Meta settlement, what it could mean for other social media companies, and more of the week’s headlines.

Listen to the full episode to hear more about:

How investors are pouring money into robotics startups and driving up valuations. For instance, Generalist reached a $3 billion valuation, while General Intuition hit the $6 billion mark.

Even though robotics is a hot sector, there is pain point: robots still lack the know-how to do value-creating work.

What senior reporter Sean O'Kane discovered when he dug into OSHA data connected to robotaxi companies like Waymo and Zoox.

What self-driving truck startup Gatik's $200 million raise means for the sector.

Hugging Face is reportedly being acquired by Nvidia. The team weighs in what this means for the industry.

Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and wherever you get your podcasts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod.
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Vibe-coding darling Lovable just raised $400 million at a $13.3 billion valuation, roughly doubling its worth in eight months. But Lovable isn’t the only Stockholm startup putting up huge numbers lately — legal AI company Legora and health tech startup Neko Health are right there with it.

On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Dominic-Madori Davis is joined by Sophia Bendz, a partner at Cherry Ventures and longtime fixture of Europe’s startup scene, to unpack what’s driving startup growth in the Nordic ecosystem, from Sweden’s social safety net to the wave of U.S. capital flowing in.

Listen to the full episode to hear more about:

How the “Spotify Mafia” set the template for founders funneling their time, capital, and hard-won lessons back into Stockholm ecosystem, and how the same cycle may be starting again with the “Lovable Mafia”

Why Sweden’s social safety net might be fueling founders’ willingness to take bigger swings

Why Bendz is seeing American investors flying into Stockholm and handing out term sheets with little to no diligence, and the culture clash that’s creating with local funds

How Europe’s sovereignty conversation is shaping how founders and investors think about building, even as most of them still plan to IPO in New York

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

0:50 Why Stockholm’s startup ecosystem is accelerating

2:34 How Stockholm’s “Spotify mafia” passes knowledge down

4:10 Founders House and building a culture of mentorship

5:50 Does Sweden’s social safety net make founders more ambitious?

10:00 Is there a “Lovable mafia” now?

10:00 Europe’s push for tech sovereignty

14:00 The U.S. venture capital flooding Stockholm

18:08 How Europe can build more growth-stage funds

19:45 Founders are asking VCs, “How can you help me?”

21:05 Stockholm’s tech conferences

25:51 Could robotics become Stockholm’s next big thing?

29:45 Outro

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Andreessen Horowitz has two partners sitting on the boards of companies that now compete with each other: Ben Horowitz at Databricks and Martin Casado at Fivetran. Nothing too scandalous on the surface, except the Department of Justice has reportedly been investigating the arrangement for almost a year, dusting off a 112-year-old antitrust law that's rarely used against VCs.

Board conflicts aren't exactly new, and these companies weren't necessarily direct competitors when a16z first invested in them. But as portfolio companies expand into each other's markets, the DOJ's scrutiny raises a much bigger question for venture firms: How do you manage board seats when the boundaries between your portfolio companies keep moving? On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O'Kane dig into the a16z probe, what it could mean for VCs, and more of the week’s headlines.

Listen to the full episode to hear more about:

Why Stripe paid $7.5 billion for AI model router OpenRouter, and why the “singularity” isn't the real reason

What happens to the AI companies caught in the middle as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Nvidia pull further ahead

Why Rivian spinout Also just raised $150 million to make a bigger bet on autonomous vehicles

Uber’s newest delivery partnership with drone company Zipline, and what it means for the other autonomous startups betting their futures on Uber

Whether we've reached peak valuation for AI dictation apps after Wispr's $280 million raise at a $2 billion valuation

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

1:02 TechCrunch Disrupt and the Startup Battlefield 200

3:17 The DOJ is investigating a16z over board seats

14:47 Why Stripe just paid $7.5B for “the Stripe for AI”

18:18 The mid-tier AI scramble: gateways, pivots, and acquihires

23:17 Anthropic's revenue surges while OpenAI's losses deepen

27:08 Also raises $150M and drops the “micro mobility” label

32:30 Uber teams up with Zipline for drone delivery

37:19 Wispr hits a $2B valuation

38:26 Outro
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The AI buildout shows no signs of slowing. And with hundreds of billions of dollars a year going into data centers and GPUs, compute has become the single biggest cost for anyone building AI products. But for all that spending, there still isn’t a straightforward way to put a price on compute — or for firms to hedge their exposure when the price changes.

Silicon Data just closed a $30 million Series A to change that. The startup aims to become the reference price for GPU rental and an index that a Wall Street futures contract would settle against. The company plans to launch its compute futures trading on the CME October 5th, pending regulatory approval. On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan is joined by Steve Hou, head of research at Silicon Data, to discuss the health of the AI buildout, and why the data is telling a different story than the doom and gloom headlines about depreciating chips and stalled data centers.

Listen to the full episode to hear more about:

What happens if OpenAI or Anthropic can’t make good on the massive compute commitments they’ve already promised, and whether “compute default” becomes a risk.

Why rental demand for older A100 chips is holding up, even as newer and more powerful GPUs hit the market.

If compute futures could make it easier for neo-clouds to finance expensive data centers by locking in future rental revenue.

What rising GPU rental rates across every contract length since March say about AI demand.

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

0:59 Futures contracts explained

4:01 Can GPU compute actually be a commodity?

7:10 Who's really trading these: hyperscalers, AI labs, and market makers

14:32 Locking in prices to make data center debt easier to swallow

18:21 Inside the pricing data

20:25 The A100 mystery: why an old chip is still in high demand

22:56 Do GPUs depreciate as fast as everyone thinks?

23:20 Making sense of the Texas and New York data center pauses

25:40 What the futures curve says about where prices are headed

28:01 Silicon Data's $30M Series A and what's next

30:36 Outro
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