Equity

Everyone wants a piece of the enterprise AI pie, and this week, we saw a string of companies making their moves. From Anthropic and OpenAI announcing new joint ventures targeting enterprise AI deployment to SAP dropping $1B on German AI startup Prior Labs, it's becoming clear that if you're a startup building enterprise tools, you're likely an acquisition target. 

On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O'Kane dig into the week's enterprise AI deals, the xAI-Anthropic compute arrangement, and what it all means ahead of what could be a big IPO season. 

Listen to the full episode to hear about: 


Why a TikToker is trying to crowdfund the purchase of Spirit Airlines, and whether anyone really loves Spirit enough to make it work 


Why Katie Haun's venture fund and Andreessen Horowitz are both raising billions to back a crypto comeback 


Aurora Innovation's milestone commercial trucking contract with a Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary, announced shortly after we caught up with Aurora’s CEO, Chris Urmson, at HumanX 


The Pentagon's latest AI spending spree, inking deals with Nvidia, Microsoft, and AWS 

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 

00:31 Spirit Airlines & the crowdfunded "people's airline" 

03:25 xAI x Anthropic deal: is xAI becoming a NEO cloud? 

13:47 Haun Ventures & a16z's crypto comeback 

17:48 Aurora Innovation lands a commercial trucking contract 

19:27 A big week for enterprise AI: who's actually making money? 

26:45 The Pentagon's AI spending spree 

31:04 Outro 
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Self-driving has been "almost here" for over a decade. But somewhere between DARPA challenges and a handful of driverless trucks hauling freight between Dallas and Houston, Aurora co-founder and CEO Chris Urmson’s story changed. The self-driving truck company started commercial driverless operations last April and is now scaling from a handful of trucks to hundreds this year. 

On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, we're bringing you a conversation Rebecca Bellan had with Urmson at the HumanX conference in San Francisco. The pair dug into the long road from lab to highway and how physical AI differs from the LLM boom everyone else is chasing. 

Listen to the full episode to hear about: 


Why long-haul trucking may crack the autonomy business case before robotaxis ever do 


What "verifiable AI" means and why Urmson thinks end-to-end systems are a liability when lives are on the line 


The surprisingly common-sense solution to the driverless truck safety triangle problem 


What Aurora's roadmap looks like beyond trucking, and which companies in the autonomy space have Urmson genuinely excited 

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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Elon Musk spent the better part of three days on the witness stand this week in his lawsuit against OpenAI, and it's already getting messy. Emails, texts, and his own tweets are surfacing in court, and there are plenty more witnesses to come. Musk's argument against OpenAI? By converting the company to a for-profit model, Sam Altman betrayed the “nonprofit for the benefit of humanity” mission Musk signed up to fund. As Musk keeps reminding the courtroom: “You can't steal a charity.” 

On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec and Sean O'Kane break down what's actually at stake in the courtroom and what to watch for as Altman and others take the stand, plus deals, defense tech, and what Big Tech's earnings week revealed about the limits of the AI spending era.

Listen to the full episode to hear about:


Why cloud was the winner of earnings week, and what AWS, Google, and Microsoft's numbers say about where enterprise AI spending is actually landing


The scholarship app founder taking Sallie Mae to court after they acquired his startup…and began selling its student data to ad networks and universities


BMW i Ventures new $300 million fund with its sights set on AI


How defense tech startup Scout AI is pitching “military AGI” using vision-language-action (VLA) models

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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AI-generated video has gone from novelty to creative tool in AI-generated video has gone from novelty to creative tool almost overnight, and Runway has a front-row seat to the shift. The New York-based company has raised close to $860 million at a $5.3 billion valuation, and its models are going toe-to-toe with the most well-funded labs in the world, including Google and OpenAI.  

And the technology goes way beyond making videos: it's now pushing into general world models with applications in gaming, robotics, and maybe something closer to general intelligence. 

On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, host Rebecca Bellan sits down with co-founder and CEO Cristobal Valenzuela to talk about where video generation goes from here, and why Runway's ambitions now reach well beyond Hollywood. 

Listen to the full episode to hear about: 


Why Valenzuela thinks the real constraint on filmmaking has never been technology, and what changes when it is 


How Runway thinks about world models differently than Google and other labs building in the space 


What "nonlinear media" means, and why real-time video generation opens up use cases way beyond content creation 


Why Valenzuela pushes back on the idea that AI companions are “inherently dystopian” 

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 

00:56 Can AI really replace Hollywood? 

04:18 Why "AI slop" fears miss the point 

08:23 Research lab, software company, or creative studio? 

13:42 From video generation to world models, explained 

17:36 Omni models and multimodal training 

17:50 The three pillars: linear media, non-linear media, physical AI 

19:31 Real-time video and the "Characters" product 

22:33 Are AI companions inherently dystopian? 

25:59 Physical AI and robotics 

28:35 Where growth is coming from: enterprise and prosumer 

29:31 Outro 
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A new era is on the way for Apple as Tim Cook plans to step down from his CEO role in September, handing the reins to hardware chief John Ternus.  

Ternus may be inheriting one of the most durable businesses in tech, but he’s also stepping into a very different ecosystem than the one Cook spent decades shaping. The App Store’s 30% cut is under pressure, the behind-the-scenes power Apple once held over developers is being challenged, and AI-native apps are changing what it means to build on Apple’s platform. 

On this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O’Kane dig into what this transition means for startups and a closer look at some of the week’s biggest deals — including SpaceX's $60B option on Cursor. 

Listen to the full episode to hear about: 


Why Anthropic’s Mythos model is raising questions about both safety and marketing 


The $5 billion Amazon-Anthropic deal that looks a lot like every other circular AI infrastructure play 


What the SpaceX-Cursor agreement (and that $10 billion breakup fee) says about Elon Musk's AI strategy post-xAI merger 


Why fintech Revolut and AI chip startup Cerebras' public market plans have us wondering whether this is actually the year the IPO market reopens 

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 

00:26 Anthropic's Mythos accessed by “unauthorized groups” 

04:28 Is Amazon's $5B Anthropic investment just another circular deal? 

09:53 SpaceX and Cursor’s $60B option 

18:25 Is this finally the year of the IPO? 

21:38 SpaceX, Revolut, and Cerebras: the IPOs to watch 

26:41 Tim Cook's retirement plans 

29:15 What a new Apple CEO means for startups and the App Store 

35:59 Outro 
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