This week, the White House gotnearly everymajor tech CEO in one room — Zuckerberg, Bezos, Musk, and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei among them —to sign an AI safety pledgethat PresidentDonaldTrump called “morally binding.”Trumpalsosigned anexecutive orderofficially rebranding AI as “super intelligence,” and meanwhile,Meta and OpenAI are puttingfriendlier faces on their AI products, even as the biggest money in AI still appears to be coming from the enterprise.
On this episode of TechCrunch’sEquitypodcast, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O’Kane dig into this week’s AI moves, theugly economics of consumer AI, plus the shifting IPO market and a handful of startup deals.
Listen to the full episode to hear more about:
- WhatOura pulling its IPO, plusAnthropic’sleaked S-1 and OpenAI going back to private funding, says about howpickypublic markets have gotten
- Quartermaster’s $140M raiseto bring real-time sensors to an industry that AIbasically hasn’ttouched yet: maritime shipping
- WhyAtomic, a supply-chain startup from ex-Tesla vets, is already running 90% of DoorDash’s purchasing
- How Startup Battlefield finalist Charter Space raised $5M to bring insurance to satellites
Speaking of Startup Battlefield, join us at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, where Equity will kick things off with a live show on the Builders Stage at 9 a.m.Get 25% off your tickets with code Equity25.
Subscribe to Equity onYouTube,Apple Podcasts,Overcast,Spotifyand all the casts. You can also follow Equity onXandThreads, at @EquityPod.
Theresa Loconsolo is an audio producer at TechCrunch focusing on Equity, the network’s flagship podcast. Before joining TechCrunch in 2022, she was one of 2 producers at a four-station conglomerate where she wrote, recorded, voiced and edited content, and engineered live performances and interviews from guests like lovelytheband. Theresa is based in New Jersey and holds a bachelors degree in Communication from Monmouth University.
You can contact or verify outreach from Theresa by emailing [email protected].
Anthony Ha is TechCrunch’s weekend editor. Previously, he worked as a tech reporter at Adweek, a senior editor at VentureBeat, a local government reporter at the Hollister Free Lance, and vice president of content at a VC firm. He lives in New York City.
You can contact or verify outreach from Anthony by emailing [email protected].
Sean O’Kane is a reporter who has spent a decade covering the rapidly-evolving business and technology of the transportation industry, including Tesla and the many startups chasing Elon Musk. Most recently, he was a reporter at Bloomberg News where he helped break stories about some of the most notorious EV SPAC flops. He previously worked at The Verge, where he also covered consumer technology, hosted many short- and long-form videos, performed product and editorial photography, and once nearly passed out in a Red Bull Air Race plane.
You can contact or verify outreach from Sean by emailing [email protected] or via encrypted message at okane.01 on Signal.
Kirsten Korosec is a reporter and editor who has covered the future of transportation from EVs and autonomous vehicles to urban air mobility and in-car tech for more than a decade. She is currently the transportation editor at TechCrunch and co-host of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast. She is also co-founder and co-host of the podcast, “The Autonocast.” She previously wrote for Fortune, The Verge, Bloomberg, MIT Technology Review and CBS Interactive.
You can contact or verify outreach from Kirsten by emailing [email protected] or via encrypted message at kkorosec.07 on Signal.