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Equity

Investor FOMO is back, and what's happening with WordPress and WP Engine?

Equity

TechCrunch

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

4.2365 Ratings

🗓️ 18 October 2024

⏱️ 37 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Today on Equity, Devin, Margaux and Anthony Ha are rounding up the week's startup and venture news, kicking things off with a look at the $400 million raised by Lightmatter, and the importance of fast networking within the fast growing datacenter industry today — not just in years to come — makes the impressive round a little more understandable. Our Deals of the Week continue with Paladin's drone play for first responders and police, and Abel aiming to reduce the substantial paperwork backlog that officers accrue in their everyday duties. Abel Founder Daniel Francis brings a chaotic energy (having landed a Twitter job from Musk after pretending to have been laid off) that could shake things up. Diving deeper, Anthony breaks down the complex back-and-forth that is the WordPress/WP Engine dispute - and we're left wondering why the obligations of and to the "open source community" are not entirely clear. What does it mean for an open source ecosystem when one person (in this case WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg) still seems to exercise tremendous influence? And could we say the same of Meta's Llama or other "open" AI solutions? Last, the "bummer" results from PitchBook showing that although founders are founding and investors are investing, there isn't a huge amount of money being made. Turns out they weren't just in it to change the world after all. What could this lack of liquidity be attributed to? Is it the macroeconomic climate, the sectors being invested in, the VC's strategies changing... or something else? At least defense and AI are doing OK, and Europe seems to be chugging along, so maybe it's specific to America? Check back in a month.

Transcript

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0:00.0

This episode is presented by Mercury, the FinTech that simplifies how more than 200,000 businesses operate. Hello and welcome back to Equity.

0:20.7

Tech Runches flagship podcast about the business of startups.

0:23.4

Today is Friday, October 18th, and I'm Marga McCall. Kirsten is still out climbing a

0:28.4

mountain somewhere, so I am the host this week. Joining me again is Tech Crunch senior editor Delvin, Devon Coldway.

0:35.4

You can call me Delvin if you want.

0:37.1

Devon, what's been going on with you this week?

0:41.1

I got my shots so my arm hurts I'm getting mine on Saturday did you

0:44.6

get sick after oh no I'm feeling fine it wasn't like a tetanus shot or anything like I was

0:49.2

only sore for a second so okay. You got your shots?

0:53.0

I did get my shots and I got them two days ago and I was really sore yesterday and I'm only somewhat

0:57.5

sore today.

0:58.5

That's exactly the same timing.

1:00.2

As long as you didn't get sick.

1:01.8

Like I used to get after every COVID shot like chills the next day.

1:05.2

Maybe you get a better shot than we do. We got the fake shots.

1:09.8

I used to, but now, yeah, now it's mostly just like some aches and pains.

1:13.9

And yeah Devon kind of introduced Anthony but we are joined once again by Anthony

1:17.9

Huh what's been going on with you besides getting all good and vaccinated?

1:25.0

Well that's really the major development. As weekend editor, my time at Tech Crunch is mostly focused on the weekend,

1:29.0

so we're ending my fake weekend and now I'm like starting my tech crunch work period which is I guess kind of a grim way to put it but I'm excited to be here.

1:38.5

That was dark.

1:40.0

Also guys I wanted to I have an announcement as a tech journalist. I checked this morning and Mark and recent has finally blocked me.

...

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