Equity

The biggest IPO in history dropped this morning on the Nasdaq — a debut so big, our team thought it deserved its own bonus Equity podcast episode.  

On this special bonus episode, Senior Reporter Sean O'Kane called up our AI Editor Russell Brandom to help him break down the $2 trillion valuation, Elon Musk becoming the world's first trillionaire, and what it all means for Anthropic and OpenAI still waiting in the wings. 

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The IPO market is back, and it's not the same companies leading the charge. FAANG had a good run, but a new acronym is taking over: MANGOS — Meta (or Microsoft, depending on who you ask), Anthropic, Nvidia, Google, OpenAI, and SpaceX. Half of that bunch is heading to public markets in the same window, and it's a stress test for investors, for valuations, and for what we can even expect from a public tech company in 2026. 

On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O'Kane break down what this IPO moment actually means beyond the headline numbers, and who stands to benefit. 

 

Listen to the full episode to hear: 


Why Apple's biggest WWDC announcement might matter less than how they showed it, and what a $250M settlement had to do with the change 


How Waymo just turned Apple's abandoned self-driving dream into its next big proving ground 


What a $920 million-per-month compute deal between Google and SpaceX says about who's leading the AI infrastructure race 


How Sam Bankman-Fried's pardon request and a new Zuckerberg biopic somehow ended with the Equity team getting cast by ChatGPT 

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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Andrew Yang’s 2020 presidential campaign was based on a warning that automation and AI would hollow out the labor market and concentrate wealth in the hands of a few. At the time, ideas like Universal Basic Income felt fringe. Now Dario Amodei, Sam Altman, and Bernie Sanders are all saying versions of the same thing. 

An entrepreneur at heart, Yang has found a new way to put money back into the hands of the people — one phone bill at a time. On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan talks to Yang about his startup Noble Mobile, which pays you to use your phone less, ways to combat the “attention economy,” and what startups can do when the government won't move. 

Listen to the full episode to hear: 


Why Yang thinks the $100 billion gap between what Americans and Europeans pay for wireless is a startup opportunity. 


How a partnership with the Light Phone fits into the growing "together tech" movement, and why Yang has been throwing no-phone parties in LA and NYC. 


What he actually thinks of Bernie Sanders' proposed AI sovereign wealth fund, and why he's skeptical the money should flow through government at all. 


Why UBI isn't a salary replacement but a "landing pad,” and what Noble Mobile's $600-a-year savings has to do with it. 

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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While the AI fundraising machine keeps breaking its own records, some founders are building in the other direction. 

Mirror founder Brynn Putnam just raised money for Board, a startup focused on bringing people together through in-person games and social experiences. Cyberdeck creators are going viral crafting whimsical DIY computers that literally encourage users to touch grass. Unlike the AI-free browser crowd, this doesn't just feel like backlash, but also people genuinely gravitating toward things that feel a little more human. 

On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O'Kane dig into the week's headlines, from the "together tech" wave to what Anthropic's confidential IPO filing means against the backdrop of Alphabet's $80 billion AI raise, and whether the money is all flowing back to the big guys anyway. 

Listen to the full episode to hear: 


Why ex-Meta CTO Mike Schroepfer raised $250 million for climate tech specifically, at a moment when almost nobody else is 


How rocket engine startup Impulse raised $500 million — and is loudly emphasizing that those funds will be spent on people, not AI 


A look inside Anthropic's S-1, and what the team is looking forward to once we can finally compare the AI labs' financials 


What two YouTube directors cracking the box office tells us about creator economy power  

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 

01:45 YouTubers are taking over the box office 

02:46 Everyone's fleeing climate tech — except this $250M fund 

07:03 Impulse Space raises $500M and is hiring humans 

13:03 Anthropic quietly files for IPO as Alphabet drops $85B on AI 

21:52 The token bubble is starting to burst 

26:08 From Board games to DIY cyberdecks, founders are betting on IRL 

33:09 Outro 
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Defense tech is red hot right now, with a proposed 40% increase to the federal defense budget, Anduril doubling its valuation to $61 billion, and a wave of startups chasing government contracts. But according to Ross Fubini, the venture investor who wrote Anduril's first check, most of them won't make it. The valley of death between a prototype contract and a real production deal is about to claim a lot of companies. 

On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan asks Fubini — the founder and managing partner of XYZ Venture Capital, built on the Palantir alumni network and now approaching $2B AUM — what separates the survivors from the rest. 

Listen to the full episode to hear: 


Why Ukraine and Iran have become live testing grounds for US defense startups, and which companies are getting in the field 


How other countries are building their own defense tech ecosystems, and what that means for where startups build and sell 


The sustainment problem nobody wants to talk about, and why autonomous logistics is the real moat 


Where Fubini is writing checks next, from AI-driven US manufacturing to government software for health and human services 

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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