Ben Horowitz’s cozy relationship with the LVMPD - and why it matters

Equity

TechCrunch

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

4.2 • 365 Ratings

🗓️ 15 November 2024

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Over the last few years, VC Ben Horowitz has donated at least $7.6 million to fund police department purchases - including the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department’s new drones from a16z-backed Skydio. Skydio is not the first of a16z’s portfolio companies to benefit from these donations, either. Today, on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Devin Coldewey and Margaux MacColl dug into the implications of Horowitz’s approach and why others in the VC world should maybe hold off on praising the controversial move. Listen to the full episode to hear about: Elon Musk’s new role in the Department of Government Efficiency. The crew wondered how much change Musk and co-lead Vivek Ramaswamy will actually be able to enact. And yes, DOGE jokes were made. Klarna’s plans for a U.S. IPO. Unfortunately, it looks like we’ll have to wait for 2025 before we get another IPO, but Margaux has a theory about what might be behind the slowdown. Vecna Robotics’ $14.5 million raise and the CEO choice that caught Kirsten’s attention. Starfish Space’s latest round and impressive batch of contracts for its full-size Otter spacecraft. Who’s joining the unsolicited bidding war over Cursor-maker Anysphere.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode is presented by Invest Puerto Rico.
0:03.3	If you believe your business can go anywhere, Puerto Rico is the place.
0:19.0	Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch's flagship podcast about the business of startups.
0:24.9	Today is Friday, November 15th, 2024.
0:28.7	I'm Kirsten Koresak, and joining me today are my fellow T-Cers, Devin Coldaway and Margo McCall.
0:35.9	Welcome you to.
0:37.1	Hello. Hi. You know what was not on my bingo card for
0:41.9	24? A lot of things that have happened recently. Everything in the last week. Yes. Well, I predicted some of that.
0:48.5	But I would say the onion buying the bankrupt InfoWars was not on my radar.
0:56.3	So just wanted to flag that little deal, that little mini deal.
0:59.3	I mean, obviously it was in bankruptcy and stuff, but I wonder how much they actually paid.
1:03.0	The onion piece by the head of global Tetragon or whatever is very hilarious.
1:07.7	But they said it was under a trillion dollars.
1:09.5	So I think that that leaves open quite a range.
1:12.2	You know, speaking of trillions of dollars, I did want to mention before we got into the deals,
1:17.2	one of the other crazy but predicted items on my list was Elon Musk being tapped to co-lead,
1:24.5	the Department of Government Efficiency, aka Doge, which, you know, is a nod to
1:30.8	his cryptocurrency. And, you know, I know that there's been a lot of like talk and discussion about
1:37.5	what this is and what this means and a lot of eye rolling. We'll see it's outside of the government.
1:42.5	So there is the funding issue, which,
1:45.9	you know, Congress appropriates money to these, usually these things. The fact that that is not
1:50.5	in the government has been answered. But two things stood out to me. One, the fact that he's
	...

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