Equity: Early Stage 2023 - IRL is B-A-C-K

04/21/23 • 8 min

Welcome back to the TechCrunch podcast. This week we're bringing you a special treat from our friends over at Equity.

This week, Alex recorded at Early Stage, TechCrunch's event for founders who are building startups from the ground up. Happily, Darrell from the TechCrunch team was sitting next to us on the show floor so we tagged him in for some rocket knowledge.

Anyhoo, here's the run of show!

All things Early Stage: Notes from the show floor, what we can infer about attendance and a vibe check.
Elon's new, larger rocket went up (very good) and then went "boom" (not as good). Happily for the space race, the overall result of the launch was good. Rockets have a tendency to go boom when they are new, and it's a bit of the, well, testing process to have them do so. Sure, a non-boom result would have been better, but SpaceX wasn't planning on trying to reuse the parts anyway.
Tesla's earnings came out and investors are not that pleased. While there was some good stuff in the numerical set, price cuts at the company and moderating cash flow indicate that profitability gains could be harder to reach in the future.
And layoffs. Meta is cutting staff. Insider is cutting staff. BuzzFeed is cutting staff. It's a mess out there.

Credits: The TechCrunch Podcast is produced by Maggie Stamets, hosted by Darrell Etherington, and edited by Kell.

Welcome back to the TechCrunch podcast. This week we're bringing you a special treat from our friends over at Equity.

Anyhoo, here's the run of show!

All things Early Stage: Notes from the show floor, what we can infer about attendance and a vibe check.
Elon's new, larger rocket went up (very good) and then went "boom" (not as good). Happily for the space race, the overall result of the launch was good. Rockets have a tendency to go boom when they are new, and it's a bit of the, well, testing process to have them do so. Sure, a non-boom result would have been better, but SpaceX wasn't planning on trying to reuse the parts anyway.
Tesla's earnings came out and investors are not that pleased. While there was some good stuff in the numerical set, price cuts at the company and moderating cash flow indicate that profitability gains could be harder to reach in the future.
And layoffs. Meta is cutting staff. Insider is cutting staff. BuzzFeed is cutting staff. It's a mess out there.

Credits: The TechCrunch Podcast is produced by Maggie Stamets, hosted by Darrell Etherington, and edited by Kell.

Previous Episode

Twitter Blue vs Meta Verified and other TC news

Blue checkmarks on Twitter and Instagram are used by public figures and media outlets to say, “you can trust I am who I say I am and you can trust me.” But now both Twitter and Meta have changed the rules of how to get verified, and in the process have stripped some of the legitimacy of the all-powerful checkmark. This week on the TechCrunch Podcast, Darrell Etherington is talking to TechCrunch’s newest reporter, Morgan Sung about the price of being verified on social media.

Use Promo code TCPOD to ger 40% founder and investor passes to Early Stage on April 20 in Boston.

Articles from the episode:

Meta Verified is under fire in sex work circles for revealing users’ legal names

Elon Musk admits he only bought Twitter because he thought he’d be forced to

With Bedrock, Amazon enters the generative AI race

FTC orders supplement maker to pay $600K in first case involving hijacked Amazon reviews

Truecaller brings live caller ID to iPhone... but with a catch

Credits: The TechCrunch Podcast is produced by Maggie Stamets, hosted by Darrell Etherington, and edited by Kell.

Next Episode

#NotMyAI and other TC news

Snapchat Rolled out their generative AI chatbot, My AI to their 750 million monthly users so it feels like the right time to pause and ask whether we’re ready for the real thing – and ready or not, whether anybody wants one. This week on the TechCrunch Podcast, Darrell Etherington is talking to TechCrunch reporter, Amanda Silberling about making robot friends on the internet.

Articles from the episode:

Credits: The TechCrunch Podcast is produced by Maggie Stamets, hosted by Darrell Etherington, and edited by Kell.