That’s capitalism, baby

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.

This is our Friday show, when we take a look at the week’s biggest startup and tech news, and have a little fun at the same time. This week, Alex and Mary Ann were joined by the excellent Rebecca Szkutak, a senior venture capital reporter on the TechCrunch+ team.

Here’s what we got into today:

• Deals of the Week: toptechtrends.com/2023/07/18/cameo-layoffs-celebrity-greeting/”>Layoffs at Cameo, where toptechtrends.com/2023/07/19/fintech-valuations-down-2023/”>fintech valuations are today and where they are going, and toptechtrends.com/2023/07/19/egnyte-storage-ipo/”>Egnyte’s slow-burn path to an IPO.
• The end of VanMoof: Raising a lot of money doesn’t necessitate a startup’s success. Such is the case with VanMoof, which raised nine-figures and built and sold e-bikes. Now toptechtrends.com/2023/07/18/vanmoof-goes-vanpoof-bankruptcy/”>it is no more, and we have questions.
• CEO turnover: As toptechtrends.com/2023/07/18/onlyfans-ceo-ami-gan-steps-down/”>the CEO of OnlyFans steps down, the gang dug into when a CEO can or should step down. Certainly some companies do best, for example, toptechtrends.com/2023/07/16/replacing-yourself-as-ceo/”>with long-term leadership by a founder. But not all.
• Generative AI and the writer’s strike: It turns out that we’re bigger South Park fans than we knew as a group, but that’s not really the point. What matters is that a toptechtrends.com/2023/07/18/maybe-showing-off-an-ai-generated-fake-tv-episode-during-a-writers-strike-is-a-bad-idea/”>recently released ‘AI-generated’ episode of the show is driving a conversation today concerning how critical — or not — humans are to the creative process. Google toptechtrends.com/2023/07/20/google-reportedly-testing-ai-tool-write-news-articles/”>is also busy here.

And that’s the end of the week! Equity is back on Monday! Chat soon!