Tokenmaxxing, OpenAI’s shopping spree, and the AI Anxiety Gap 


The gap between AI insiders and everyone elseis widening, and the spending, suspicion, and even new vocabulary are starting to show it. While OpenAI is busy buying up everything fromfinance appstotalk shows, a certain shoe company justrebranded as an AI infrastructure play, and Anthropic unveiled a model it says istoo powerful to release publicly…butapparently nottoo powerful to demo to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

On this episode of TechCrunch’sEquitypodcast, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O’Kane dig intowhat’sactually beingbuilt in AI infrastructure,who’swinning the enterprise battle between OpenAI and Anthropic, and more of the week’s headlines.

Listen to the full episode to hear about:

  • Why chipmakers AMD, Arm, and Qualcommjust piled $60M into UK self-driving startup Wayve, and what Uber’s $300M milestone bid says aboutwho’swinning the AV race
  • Howdata center startupFluidstackis positioning itself for the frontier labs,including a reported $50B agreement with Anthropic
  • WhatClaude Code’s moment at the HumanX conferencereveals about where the OpenAI vs. Anthropic rivalry isactually playingout
  • Whytokenmaxxing, and Meta’s leaked internal leaderboard, might say more about optics than actual productivity

Subscribe to Equity onYouTube,Apple Podcasts,Overcast,Spotifyand all the casts. Youalso canfollow Equity onXandThreads, at @EquityPod.

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].

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].

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.

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.

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