Are AI companies just defense tech now?

Equity

TechCrunch

Founders, Silicon Valley, Finance, Ipo, Vc, Technology, Business News, Startups, Business, Venture Capital, News, Stock Market, Entrepreneurship, Techcrunch

4.2 • 365 Ratings

🗓️ 20 December 2024

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week, the Equity pod gang — which included newcomer Max Zeff, Margaux MacColl, and Kirsten Korosec — noticed an emerging trend: the worlds of AI and defense tech are colliding. Listen to the full episode to hear about: A new fund is in town. And surprise, surprise, Humba Ventures' $40 million fund is focused on deep tech and defense. How enterprise AI startup Cohere is unlike all the other AI startups out there, and why they've been so quiet. Particularly in this new deal with Palantir. Dig into the great philosophical question of 2024: is it dumb to IPO in an election year? And, perhaps more importantly, will this IPO dry spell continue in 2025? Should founders be cautious of investors with foreign backing? Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes here. Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch's flagship podcast about the business of startups.
0:17.9	This is our Friday episode for December 20th.
0:20.7	I'm Kirsten Koresak, and I'm joined by
0:23.5	co-host Marco McCall, and I'm super excited that Max Zeph, who covers all things from venture to
0:30.8	AI, really honestly everything, is also joining us today. Max, welcome to the show.
0:36.7	Hello, everyone. I'm super excited to be here,
0:39.7	especially so because by the time you're listening to this Open AI's shipmiss event will be over,
0:45.7	and I will be able to rest finally. We're recording this on a Thursday, so that means that if by Friday, Open AI releases AGI or something, we won't know.
0:57.5	But if that's existing, you know, good luck to everyone. So that's all I can say.
1:03.7	Well, you need the rest. But I swear, I'm telling you, it's not just Open AI that is like really pushing the news ahead of the holidays.
1:11.5	I mean, I don't know about you, Margo or Max, but my email inbox is just like, it's as if the holidays are not even happening.
1:21.8	I'm getting requests for like interviews on the 23rd and on the 24th.
1:26.9	So that's something new this year.
1:28.6	I don't know.
1:28.9	Is that happening to you or is this just me?
1:30.7	No, 100%.
1:31.8	And especially because I cover a lot of government-adjacent stuff,
1:34.6	I feel like Trump is on a roll and there's a million announcements all the time.
1:38.4	So it has not been like a restful week before the holidays.
1:41.8	No, not at all.
1:42.9	And speaking of like the news churn is just insane.
1:46.2	I don't know if this was on my bingo card for 2024. It would have been on my bingo card for
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in -55 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from TechCrunch, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of TechCrunch and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.