Fact-Checking Mark Rober, and the Fall of TechCrunch | E2101
This Week in Startups
Jason Calacanis
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 21 March 2025
⏱️ 61 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today’s show: Jason, Alex, and Lon break down a subreddit question: A founder builds 100% of the product, is promised equity—and now he’s being pushed out. We break down exactly what he should do next. Plus, YouTuber Mark Rober’s viral Tesla test gets fact-checked by a small creator, and the results don’t look great for Mark. Finally, TechCrunch gets quietly sold to Regent in what looks like a fire sale. Is this the end of an era for tech media?
Timestamps:
(0:00) Episode Teaser(1:25) Jason's memories of Tony Hsieh
(4:09) High stakes poker stories with Tony Hsieh
(7:28) Reflecting on joy and fun in life
(9:45) Atlassian - Head to https://www.atlassian.com/startups/twist to see if you qualify for 50 free seats for 12 months.(11:46) Founder question from Reddit
(20:12) Fidelity Private Shares℠ - Visit https://fidelityprivateshares.com! Mention our podcast and receive 20% off your first-year paid subscription.
(21:52) Subreddit question: Stealth vs. building in public(27:33) Update: Mark Rober's Looney Tunes wall experiment
(31:21) Lemon.io - Get $2000 off your first hire at http://lemon.io/hire
(37:50) Lessons from the Mark Rober experiment
(40:24) The future of tech journalism and subscription models
(47:34) Jason’s idea for a gadget museum
(50:12) Updates on CoreWeave and Klarna IPOs
(51:43) Bipartisan bill to amend Section 230
(56:29) Algorithms and their impact on Section 230
(59:00) Global perspectives on online speech and anonymity
(1:00:00) Podcast closing and call for social media engagement
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Thank you to our partners:
(9:45) Atlassian - Head to https://www.atlassian.com/startups/twist to see if you qualify for 50 free seats for 12 months.
(20:12) Fidelity Private Shares℠ - Visit https://fidelityprivateshares.com! Mention our podcast and receive 20% off your first-year paid subscription.
(31:21) Lemon.io - Get $2000 off your first hire at http://lemon.io/hire
Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Tech Wrench just got sold to a company called Regent. |
| 0:02.9 | That dropped out of the sky. |
| 0:04.3 | No one saw that coming. |
| 0:05.5 | Like all these things, it's probably an SEO play. |
| 0:08.3 | I'm guessing it's a fire sale and SEO plan. |
| 0:10.8 | They're going to cut two thirds of the writers and game over. |
| 0:14.4 | What do you think, Alex? |
| 0:15.8 | It's adversarial. |
| 0:17.2 | You can have an opinion. |
| 0:18.4 | No, I, I mean, this is one of those times that I'm so |
| 0:21.5 | conflicted. It's hard to, it's hard to be clear-headed. I mean, I love so many people there. |
| 0:25.3 | We like to. Yeah. This is like, this is where you could actually, uh, you know, earn your bones here. |
| 0:31.6 | Just let it rip. Okay. I think the people complain that the media isn't sufficiently nice to tech are a bunch of whiners, |
| 0:37.8 | and they should go sit upon their thrones of gold and stop coveting about people who make one one thousandth of their income. |
| 0:44.9 | This weekend startups is brought to you by Atlassian. |
| 0:48.6 | From MVP to IPO, Atlassian for startups provide your team the right tools to plan, track, and collaborate on work. |
| 0:55.0 | Head to atlasian.com slash software slash startups to see if you qualify for 50 free seats for 12 months. |
| 1:01.3 | Fidelity Private Shares. |
| 1:02.9 | If you want an all-in-one equity management platform, Fidelity Private Shares has you covered. |
| 1:07.2 | Visit FidelityPrivate shares.com. |
| 1:09.2 | Mention this podcast for 20% off your first year subscription. |
| 1:13.0 | And, lemon.io, get access to Lemonhire, a platform with more than 80,000 pre-vetted |
... |
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