Equity podcast

recruitment or retention? • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 18, 2022Posted in Equity podcast, FTX, maven, Startups, women's healthNo Comments

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. This week, Alex and Natasha discussed the latest and greatest of this consuming news cycle. Our goal with the episode, as always, is to go beyond what you may see in a 140 character-take on [insert big story here]. And in today’s recording? That wasn’t hard at all. We started with our good news segment: 1) Maven, now valued at $1.35 billion, is answering a countrywide demand: More fertility benefits and 2) Alibaba eyes logistics growth in LatAm as China commerce slows. We love a chance to talk about growth, despite all odds and even trends! Then, right off the heels of our amazing debut crypto conference, we take a minute to talk about the FTX Fall out. Yep, we’re talking about how one African Web3 startup got screwed over and why SoftBank joined Sequoia in marking down its investment in the crypto exchange. We then turn to the latest in layoffs: Amazon’s 3% cut, cuts at Morning Brew and Protocol, and Musk’s latest attempt to recruit (or retain?) Twitter employees. We still don’t know what’s happening there, don’t ask us. Ok fine, you can. And we’ll end by throwing this gem here, with little to know context: I volunteer as tribute. And that’s wrap. As always you can follow the show @equitypod, leave us a rating on Apple Podcasts and, most importantly, be kind to your people. Talk soon! Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday and Wednesday, and at 6 a.m. PT on Fridays, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. ZebethMedia also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together, and more!

Corporate comms for the startup soul • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 17, 2022Posted in elon musk twitter, Equity podcast, startup pr, Startups, VentureNo Comments

Hello and welcome back to Equity, ZebethMedia’s venture capital focused podcast where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. Today we have something a bit different for you. In light of the never-ending Musk-Twitter saga, and news that the new social media CEO had cut its corporate communications staff to the bone — and then some. So to get more perspective on the role that a corporate comms team plays in both startups and public companies alike, we wrangled two folks who have just that experience set: Kelly Boynton, senior director of communications at Gusto Keyana Corliss, until recently the head of global communications and PR at Databricks The pair discussed the role that comms plays in companies both internally and externally, and why it deserves a seat at the decision-making table. Given the media furor surrounding Musk himself, you can imagine that we had a lot to talk about. Oh, and Keyana has a podcast that I was a guest on, in case you want to hear more from her! Regular service returns tomorrow! Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday and Wednesday, and at 6 a.m. PT on Fridays, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. ZebethMedia also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together, and more!

Cleanup, aisle FTX • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 14, 2022Posted in Equity Monday, Equity podcast, FTX, Startups, VentureNo Comments

Hello, and welcome back to Equity, the podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. Here’s what we got into on our Monday episode, a weekly kick-off of sorts: Stocks are mixed around the world, up in parts of Asia and Europe, but down sharply in the United States to start the week. Crypto prices have recovered modestly, but remain sharply depressed from the last week. The FTX damage continues to reverberate. Speaking of crypto, the FTX saga continues. The latest includes a hack on Friday, and a massive emission of new FTT tokens that was so poorly received that major exchanges pulled deposits of the now-radioactive security. All the exchange drama has led to other exchanges taking fire, and Coinbase looking great in contrast. Elsewhere in tech-land: Fake meat raises a bunch more money, Klarna is doing some neat product work, India has unbanned VLC, which was a head-scratcher to begin with, and e-commerce infra startups are still raising capital! And that’s all the time we had this morning! More Wednesday! Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday and Wednesday, and at 6 a.m. PT on Fridays, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. ZebethMedia also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together, and more!

It’s not a rug pull if it’s an accident • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 11, 2022Posted in Equity podcast, ftx binance, meta, Sam Bankman-Fried, Startups, tech layoffsNo Comments

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. We thought that last week was a lot. It was, but this week was somehow more. More chaotic, rapid-fire change at a number of massive tech companies kept us on our toes. So, while our beloved co-host Natasha was out, we couldn’t do the recording down a set of hands, so we brought Becca aboard with Mary Ann and Alex. The list of news was so long that we were cutting entire sections up until we hit record, and even still we went over time. If you like longer episodes, this one is for you. Deals of the Week: What’s going on with the former Peloton CEO’s new rug startup? And how is Tellus going to offer much better consumer savings rates? And, finally, how wrong can Alex get the Harmonic business model until he figures it out live on the show? Mega-layoffs: From there, we had to sit down and discuss the massive Meta layoffs. Our read is that the company is doing right by the folks it is cutting, which is not as much as we can say about some other companies in the world also undergoing massive staffing cuts. Naturally, this brought up Twitter to a degree, the smaller social network being the Main Character in tech news up until, well: WTF FTX? Ah, FTX. Last week it was worth $32 billion and its founder was arguably the face of crypto around the world. And now Sequoia has pulled its on-site hagiography, SBF is a pariah, and FTX may be going to zero. There’s going to be a mini-series about this, isn’t there? We are back Monday! Have a lovely weekend! Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday and Wednesday, and at 6 a.m. PT on Fridays, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. ZebethMedia also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together, and more!

Tech layoffs may get worse before they get better • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 9, 2022Posted in Continuum, Equity podcast, Layoffs, Nolan Church, Startups, TwitterNo Comments

Carta’s former chief people officer turned entrepreneur chats through his advice for conducting a layoff Natasha Mascarenhas @nmasc_ / 8 hours 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 Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single person, think about their work, and unpack the rest. This week, Natasha interviewed Nolan Church, the CEO and co-founder of Continuum, about his perspective on the tech layoff wave. While we do indeed get into how his vision of fractional work fits into this conversation, we start with the fact that Church helped conduct Carta’s layoffs in 2020 (a low of his entire career, he says) and what that experience taught him about the importance of being direct. Here are a few of the topics we get into: Twitter’s recent layoffs, Jack’s silence and who should take ownership for what The generic CEO statement on macroeconomic challenges Stripe’s recent layoffs What is the best way to conduct a layoff, and how should you communicate with staff? How does that change based on stage? Is the rumor that all startups should just cut 20% of staff to extend runway accurate at all? If Church could go back in time, would he change anything about the way that Carta conducted its layoffs? What executive role is most likely to be disrupted and why Q1 may bring more doom and gloom into the tech sphere And finally, Church’s attempt to summarize all of 2022 in a headline (I don’t disagree with his final answer, by the way). I’ll fully take ownership for the fact that my column from just two weeks ago (!) has poorly aged. If you or someone you know is whipping up a cool program – like this – to support those laid off, hit me up on Twitter and I may just create a good news show. Equity drops every Monday at 7 a.m. PT and Wednesday and Friday at 6 a.m. PT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. ZebethMedia also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, a show that details how our stories come together and more!

One day all tech news will merely be updates to Twitter moderation policies • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 7, 2022Posted in elon musk twitter, Equity Monday, Equity podcast, Startups, Venture, YassirNo Comments

Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday and Wednesday, and at 6 a.m. PT on Fridays, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. ZebethMedia also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together, and more!

Most of the unicorns aren’t • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 4, 2022Posted in Brex, Equity podcast, Layoffs, Onward, Startups, stripe, VentureNo Comments

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. Oh what a week. What a week. Things are busier than ever at ZebethMedia, where we’re coming out of our post-conference stupor and charing straight back into a packed news cycle. Sure, Musk is still making waves, but there are startup rounds to cover, layoffs to chew on, earnings coverage, unicorn reports, new data, and more. After cutting back sharply on material and still going long, here’s what Mary Ann, Natasha, and Alex got into this week: Rewind wants to help people with their memory. We talk about how the startup, which launched this week, uses recording technology to help you get what you see, hear and say at your finger tips. We talked about Onward, a startup that wants to help divorced or separated parents fight less about money and how it just raised nearly $10 million despite being pre-revenue. The somewhat odd, possible Byju’s IPO-spinoff of Aakash, a tutoring company that it bought the other year. Our views can be summarized in meme format: An edtech IPO? In this economy? Unicorns face an incredibly uphill journey to get public, which may explain in part why Byju’s is not itself going public (recall that it had had plans, but like with so many other companies those are on hold). And then there was Brex, which announced a new partnership with Techstars despite a big push into the enterprise space. Stripe revealed that it has cut 14% of its staff, or over 1,100 people, and its CEO and co-founder Patrick Collison admitting that the payments giant had “overhired for the world we’re in.” And finally, there’s a new VC ratings company in the neighborhood. How do we feel? Better than some VCs, at least. Got all that? Good. More Monday morning. Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday and Wednesday, and at 6 a.m. PT on Fridays, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. ZebethMedia also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together, and more!

Investors are either ghosting, quiet quitting or rewriting their entire playbook • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 2, 2022Posted in Equity podcast, maternity leave, Startups, Venture, venture capitalNo Comments

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 Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single topic, think about a question and unpack the rest. This week, Natasha and Alex interviewed one of their favorite reporters, Business Insider’s Melia Russell! The trio chatted through how the role of a venture capitalist is changing. That means we spoke about emerging fund managers, seasoned operators and, of course, Russell’s latest story about how some investors are re-writing the playbooks when it comes to maternity leave policies at their firms. I don’t want to tease out all the hot takes, but let’s just say that this dispatch is a tad blunt. For one, apparently, no one thinks that venture firm M&A is a thing other than us. Anyways, we think you’ll love the episode, learn something new about how venture is changing and probably have a take on whether this is natural job cycle stuff or true structural changes. We’re back Friday with our weekly roundup, which, as you can imagine, is going to be packed. Chat soon! Equity drops every Monday at 7 a.m. PT and Wednesday and Friday at 6 a.m. PT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. ZebethMedia also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, a show that details how our stories come together and more!

Twitter is a startup again, I guess • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 31, 2022Posted in Equity Monday, Equity podcast, Startups, twitter elon musk, VentureNo Comments

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. Stocks are mixed around the world, notably lower in China on the back of some negative economic data, and down in the United States ahead of what is expected to be another rise in interest rates thanks to the Federal Reserve. Crypto prices have held onto recent gains. A busy weekend of Twitter leaks lead the news cycle. Precisely if, and if yes, how much, Twitter can charge for verified accounts to keep their badge is now a point of conversation. Other reports of development deadlines with termination held as a threat if they are not met are likely doing great things for staffer morale. It turns out that self-driving cars are still far away. I am crying. Startups Zebra Labs and Invygo raised money, showing that the global startup investment market has not frozen, and that there is still funding for more future-facing efforts like Zebra in the metaverse. Finally, we’re keeping close tabs on the Q4 venture capital cycle. If we don’t see a rebound soon, how many unicorns die? And that’s our show! More Wednesday! Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday and Wednesday, and at 6 a.m. PT on Fridays, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. ZebethMedia also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together, and more!

I regret to inform you that Elon has something to do with this • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 28, 2022Posted in Elon Musk, Equity podcast, Startups, VentureNo Comments

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. We hope that you are in good form this Friday, alive, well, and ready to rock. We certainly were. And in a change of pace, as our dear Mary Ann was off this week, the excellent Anita Ramaswamy joined Natasha Mascarenhas and Alex Wilhelm on the mics. (Theresa, as per usual, held down the production front!) What did we merry three get into? The following: We are back Monday for a spooky episode! Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday and Wednesday, and at 6 a.m. PT on Fridays, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. ZebethMedia also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together, and more!