Inside the ‘cold war’ at Techstars and how AI is accelerating disability tech | Equity Podcast

This episode is presented by invest Puerto Rico if you believe your business Can go anywhere Puerto Rico is the [Music] Place hello and welcome back to equity a Podcast about the business of startups Where we unpack the numbers and Nuance Behind the headlines today is Friday May 3rd I'm marann as And joining me is senior TC reporter Alex Wilhelm Alex how are you well I'm Doing good I have 10% left of a Red Bull Turns out I'm out of coffee but we've Already hit record so no drinks for me Oh this is going to be fun we're also Joined by TCH crunch senior reporter and Editor Kirsten coret Kirsten how are you I'm great I'm trying to keep up with the Chaos that is Tesla right now but thanks For asking yes there's been so much Tesla news I don't know how you do it Well for the show today we are going to Get into a few very interesting deals of The week including Ana emotional and Beehive and then we're going to dig into A very interesting theme around Disability Tech leveraging Ai and lastly We're going to have a special guest Senior TC reporter and found co-host Dominique madori Davis who did a very Thorough investigative piece around Tex Stars hell yeah so first up is my story On Ana which is a wallet as a service Startup which you may be asking what is

Wallet as a service so let me help Explain that for you real quick if You've ever gone through the Starbucks Drive-through and you have the Starbucks App and you use it to pay for your Coffee that is essentially wallet as a Service so that way you don't have to Pull out your credit card you don't have To pay in cash you just reload funds Into your Starbucks app and use it to Pay so a lot of mom and pop coffee shops Would love that ability and that's what Ana is trying to do it's trying to give These mom and pop type retailers a way To accept payments through virtual Wallets okay first of all drive-thru Starbucks how many of those are there You said that like it was like the norm I've always walked into Starbucks okay Well I live in Texas where people don't Walk that much so we most of our Starbucks have drive-throughs uh I keep Forgetting that you live in real America Oh no they're everywhere it's like every Corner is a Walgreens or a drive-through Starbucks oh okay so apparently I'm a Terrible American but thank you maryan That does put this into context for me I Have a question though about these Wallets that that Anza is doing so let's Say that I download the app I get a Wallet is it branded to a specific okay So I would download you know the um Trying to think of an example the Tesla

App for example and I could put money Onto my Tesla thing but I couldn't then Take it to another service that has it On the wallet specifically branded to That Merchant which is what makes it so Cool so you may ask what is the Advantage for the merchant well there's A lot of them one it helps them grow Loyalty among their customer base they Save money on credit card fees and not Just interchange one thing that I Learned in interviewing Sophia Goldberg The CEO and co-founder is that because These are such small purchases the Percentage fees that Merchants pay Actually the percentage that they pay in Fees is much higher than say like on a $100 purchase so for example if $4 latte Could cost a merchant like 12 12% in Fees so by giving their customers a way To pay without a credit card they're Saving money in fees they they make Themselves look really cool with this Branded wallet and then they can build Loyalty offer rewards and one thing I Did forget to mention I actually covered This company about almost exactly a year Ago when they raised their $5.4 million Seed round they just closed on a $14 Million series a and over 95% of its Investors in this round were female but Anyway we'll get into more of that later But I just I just wanted to bring that Up I had a question about how it plays

Or plays nicely with other software that I think of like the local coffee shop I Go to and they all use some sort of Point of sale management system so that I can use my phone right to pay so maybe It's square or one of the others so how Does this app walled as a service which It sounds like it's white labeled play With maybe a point of sale system can it Be do you know like the details of or Are startups having to pick lick one or The other no I think it it integrates With most of the modern payment service Providers including Square stripe brain Tree so that way it makes it pretty easy For people to or Merchants to onboard And and offer it to their customers so When I first read the story I misread it And I thought it was essentially Integrate with the onzo wallet app and Then whatever whatever business wanted To could access it and therefore I could Have one centralized bucket of Alex Money that I could then spend around Does anyone else have app fatigue yes Very much so like my my concern with This is I I just don't want more apps I Already have like 12 and that's like Eight too many I get it I get what You're saying no it's more of a wh Labeled what they call digital wallet Infrastructure and so I I get the app Fatigue but also if there's somewhere That you go a lot I think you're going

To be a lot more okay with installing an App and just using it to pay because it Just makes your life easier and more Convenient too okay but on that note Where do we go apart from Starbucks Frequently enough that you Maryann a Aeto want to download an app Specifically to pay for that service Because you have to have frequency has To have a use case for example a Drive-thru so for me this would be McDonald's because I'm obsessed with Having fries as a little treat but you Know I don't know if everyone has Similar food habits you know I'm trying To kind of sort out who this is for I Mean there are local coffee shops right That people frequent not everybody wants To go to Starbucks so for example our Local coffee shop okay I have a group of Friends that goes there pretty regularly I think they would love to be able to Earn rewards and do things like that Through an app you know this also Reminds me of and I wonder if this is a Growth area or just an area that's shut Out of which is there are similar app Services that work with local gyms or Where you can use that to sign in or Sign up for a class but also do the Financial payments slightly different Thing but it is oftentimes like a Smaller business I'm not talking about The big chains here I'm talking about

Your local yoga studio exactly or Whatever and I and I wonder if that's an Area where that they've played around in Yeah you're on the right track though Yeah K they're not going after the big Chains their initial Focus like the Coffee quick service restaurant Marketplace verticals are their initial Core markets then they're looking at Like retail and convenience stores as Other Target markets smaller businesses That would really you know benefit from Saving money on these credit card fees With each transaction and want to have a Way to build loyalty so yeah you're Right you're right on target there I Know we need to move on but I I have one Last thing about this you know we've Talked ad nauseum about monetized media And subscriptions advertisements Whatever you know people have always Said eventually we're going to do micro Payments so you can pay for an article You can pay the times a quarter to read That piece and it never works because Micro payments are terrible transaction Sizes as Mary's pointed out in terms of Costs maybe we could try something like This for that like if there was a Washington Post account or a Bloomberg Account I could put $10 in and pay them Per article I'd do it startup idea um Before we close out of this though I do Want to mention that Renegade Partners

LED Ana's latest financing existing Backers doubled down including Bank Capital box group wish off Ventures and Again impressive female investors Contributed 95.6% to this series a r They seem very very pumped about this Company I would say it's one of the Buzziest fincks I seen in a while now Kristen I am very curious to hear about Hyundai and motional yeah so your Favorite topic by the way which is Self-driving cars so the headline is That Hundai is spending close to a Billion dollars to keep self-driving Startup emotional alive but there's Important details in here so motional is A joint venture that started in 2019 With aptive which is an automotives Parts supplier and with Hyundai and the Idea is that it was going to be a 50/50 Partnership a $4 billion joint venture And it was going to be focused on Developing essentially Robo taxis this Past January aptive was basically like JK they want to pull out and so then There was a big question mark about Whether motional whose Roots really the Company's Roots really are in a startup Called nutonomy really interesting AV Startup that's started back in 2013 if They'd be able to get the money needed To continue so a couple of things They're burning through a lot of cash Would Hyundai step up or would they need

To go and get an external investor so This is sort of the answer to that and What we learned today is that yundai is Basically going to give a direct Injection of capital to motional about $475 million and then also spend about 448 million to start buying out aptiv's Common equity interest so at the end of The day what they end up with is about 85% voting share control and obviously Putting more money into it there's a Question mark though about how much time This gives motional what's the runway And do they get more external investors I'm trying to sort out how much money Hyundai has by going through their Financial filings but what I've just Discovered is that offhand I cannot Convert billions of Korean wand Shown in thousands into USD on the fly So I don't actually know how much cash They have but it does seem that they Have lots of resources so this is not an Extravagance by Hyundai Kiren more of a Strategic choice just to not fall behind In this larger category yeah so I mean We've seen what has happened a lot of These companies had very aggressive Timelines those timelines mov back more Money had to be put in and then we saw What happened with companies like Ford Saying actually actually we're we're Going to Pivot we realize that we are Going to have to put billions more into

This to make a commercial Enterprise and Then they've completely pulled out this Is what happened to Argo with motional It seems like Hundai is still committed The platform the underlying platform That they're using for the their Robo Taxis is a Hyundai vehicle and they have Put together a pretty large investment In infrastructure including this Center In Singapore where it's like a new Innovation Center that involves the Ionic 5 Robo taxi so they're deeply Integrated at this point so if they were To change direction which they still Could it would be quite a shift and I Will say this too Hyundai has a lot of Assets including Boston Dynamics so They're very interested in robotics AI Autonomous vehicle technology does that Mean that if you buy Hyundai stock You're really taking out an option on The future of AI self-driving in Robotics because that sounds like it's Quote not a car company and I've heard That pitch from other domestic companies Yeah except for the difference is that Hyundai continues to understand that the Money that they're making is from Selling vehicles and so they're not you Know cutting entire teams randomly yeah I'm not trying to segue into your pet Topic here but like this entire Emotional thing really struck me because It just goes to show how hard autonomy

In General is for cars and then I'm just Trying to square emotional the bailout Hyundai aptive this entire Saga compared To what we're seeing at Tesla and it Just seems that Tesla thinks we're going To get to the finish line of SL driving Faster than other groups do and Someone's wrong I don't know who but I Can't stop thinking about it yeah I have To say this total kind of aside that's a Pretty car or vehicle or whatever you Want to call it it's really goodlooking Yeah the ionic 5 it's great it's you can Actually buy it not the taxi but it is a Passenger vehicle that you can buy you Can steal the robo taxi if you see one Though you just Ki just it's like Grand Theft Auto you just reach in pull the Person out and then sit in it and off You go so one final point about this Before we move on to our other deal I Think that the correlation that you're Trying to make or the comparison I Should say between Tesla and what Hyundai is doing putting the Elon Musk Factor aside Tesla's always been a Company that wants to do it all be Completely vertically integrated in Other companies like kendai with varying Success I will say say other automakers Have chosen the let's invest in X and Then build that up let's take a stake in This let's have a side project here and That is turning out to potentially be

The way to go if you're investing in What I would still call Frontier Tech Which is ways off and Tesla is putting All of its eggs towards this autonomy AI Basket while their profits are falling On their Automotive Sales and they're Trying to do it all in house and they're Completely restructuring the company to Achieve that that is obviously Incredibly risky and I'm not sure how That's going to play out not to Pivot This entire conversation back to Tesla But you know I mean it is the black hole Of news in today's world but do you know What's not risky or associated with Elon Musk or self-driving beehive and no I'm Not talking about Ye Old apiary hobby no You don't have to get stung to Understand this beehive is a competitor To substack it is a newsletter platform That is growing and this week it raised A $33 million series B and beehive folks Have been pretty open about talking About growth on Twitter so I think we've All known that be has been doing pretty Well I just didn't expect it to land What I'm going to go ahead and say is a Abnormally large series B for this Market it does feel quite large 33 Million I don't think would have caught Our eye back in 2021 but for today That's a lot and also because I think as We all know substack did that Equity Crowdfunding campaign recently

Presumably because the Venture TOS have Been turned off so it's a very Interesting moment first of all before We even get into the deal I just want to Say Alex that I'm impressed by the Number of Honey based and bbased puns That you were able to fold into that Little intro I get I get excited and Then I think of the next one while I'm Saying one and then you just kind of Keep going and then you eventually You're like we got to stop this it's not Really the buzz anymore oh my goodness Exactly ding ding but to the deal 33 Million yeah and I was interested in This because when I first saw the Headline I was like newsletter Publishing platform like wow is there Room for more like what why are people Putting money into this but maybe this Is the state of our the media industry And the interest in content right that They're still attracting money well They're attracting money and what caught My eye too was they had just raised or Announced the 12 a. half million series A last June so we're talking about less Than a year which is not as common these Days as it was a few years back the Investors that participated there was Nea light speed and also I really Appreciate they actually shared some Numbers they went from having 7500 Active newsletters last summer to around

20,000 now so I mean they're definitely Growing and they were willing to share That growth so all around very Interesting growth story yeah and now I'm very curious what the the wework Style metrics would be like not Community adjusted eida but like active Email newsletter per dollar valuation Like that's what I'm now curious about I Think that the space though like how Much room is there for these companies Is infinite because what is the Cockroach of the Internet it's email Right I mean everything else is kind of Come and gone or is currently you know Writing high but email is the absolute Senu of the web and as long as that Remains true people are going to send Emails they're going to need tools for It the companies will change a little Bit the models will change a little bit But here we have you know beehive in 2024 with a SAS model and an email Product and it's going gang busters I Mean that's like it's the same We've been doing forever but apparently There was more room it feels a little Bit like ramp following brecks like we Were all like ah we already have brecks And then ramp went Kaboom you know so Here we are with beehive post substack You know but with both spaces there's Plenty of room for multiple players Right I mean it doesn't this is not as

We you know cliche winner take all Category there's room for plenty of them There's a lot of people who are dying to Put their words out there in a Newsletter format so I say kudos to Beehive for recognizing that and Executing now we're going to have to Jump to break but after the break we'll Get into disability Tech leveraging AI what's next in Tech that's not the Right question it's where Puerto Rico More than just a Tropical Paradise it's An inov ations Paradise where startups And Global players coexist in a vast and Vibrant ecosystem where Talent runs deep Highly skilled and bilingual plus the Island offers the most competitive tax Incentives in the US if you believe your Business can go anywhere Puerto Rico is The place find out more at invest pr.org TechCrunch so I am super excited about This first theme because AI is Everywhere we've been riding so much About how it's creeping into battery Development and other areas of the Startup world and this story by Anaheim Is about how European disability Tech Startups are using AI to further their Technology have you read this oh Absolutely I thought it was super Fascinating also shout out Anna just for Being fantastic her reporting is always The best I think the world of her but Kiron the thing that I was most excited

About while reading this is the Discussion of business models because When I think about accessibility Tech I Think about something that sounds very Important that would help a lot of People and that might not have a venture Backal path to monetization and so it Seems kind of like a bummer that a lot Of the stuff that does raise money often Has a good use but doesn't have the same Sort of like broadening access to Information that accessibility is Supposed to and so I was really hyped to See this number of companies working on So many different things in so many Different places yeah I was also just Impressed yeah again that Anna was ble To uncover four companies in Europe Doing these very similar things in terms Of wanting to to help people especially I think she was focus on people with Hearing loss who needed help with Hearing and so kudos to her again for That I love this so one of the companies For example was called visual fi which Leverages AI to improve the lives of People with hearing loss it's a Spanish Startup and this is really interesting Because the AI here is sound recognition So supposedly it can do things like Recognize fire alarms and the sound of a Baby crying that was kind of fascinating To me yeah so earlier there was the Mention of like business models and I

Want to back up and talk about before Business model what's the market size Potentially addressing the need around Hearing loss so by 2050 2.5 billion People are projected to have some degree Of hearing loss that sounds like a Fairly large Market size so then it Comes down to how do you either use new Technology leverage existing technology To address come up with some sort of Product or service for that group of People and the one startup that you Mentioned is super interesting there's Another one that is focused on speech But this time voice banking or storing a Person's voice for later use that's Called AC capella which was I thought Super interesting kind of a wild idea But the point here is there's always Been this need but now this idea of Using AI to push the technology forward In a real way yeah absolutely Ely and I Think when we just think about hearing Loss again speaking from where I live I Live around a lot of college students There's many universities and colleges Near where I live and there's only two Forms of college kid there is the person In group talking with their friends or There is college kid wearing enormous Over-the-ear headphones and I'm just Going to go ahead and say I don't think Those students are all practicing good Hearing practices with their headphones

And that means they're going to in 50 Years they're going to need help so the Market for I think think hearing loss And and hearing assistance is is going To get enormous over time and also Because I think gen Z have been uh noted For being big fans of subtitles I think Accessibility Tech that other people Might not think of is just becoming more Normalized in in their lives yeah and I I have to talk about one other of the Startups that she featured is a company Called niser which uses AI to make Speech more intelligible in environments Such as Cinemas museums public Transportation so I thought that was That was really cool too I love love When hype technology is applied to like Really useful use cases I mean again I Say it all the time I feel like such a Broken record in such a cliche but you Know using technology to really improve People's lives make the world a better Place this is when we get excited the Most excited so really love the idea Behind all of these companies ideas Behind all of these companies yeah one Thing I've been I've been excited about In this space has been watching Microsoft do some good work they've Built Gaming controllers and worked on I Think windows and you know different Colors for software and stuff there's a Lot you can do to make technology more

Accessible to more people and that's Just way bigger than any one company Even a major platform company so to see You know so many startups using new tech I don't want to sound silly but like it Makes you feel kind of encouraged you Know a little Sunny a little optimism It's great that people are dedicating Their time and energy and sometimes Invest their money to really make the World more accessible good what a great Thing to do with your time so speaking Of someone who has invested a lot of of Time and energy I want to turn our Attention to a reporter here at TechCrunch who's been working on a story For three months and she's I think going To come on the podcast right yes yes we Are so lucky to have Dominique madori Davis here to talk about her very In-depth investigative look into Tech Stars Dom tell us all about it this took You weeks and weeks yeah this took a few Months since February I think whenever Seattle shut down which I think was in February end of febru Until I guess a few days ago yes I mean You had about 30 sources so tell us the Gist of it I mean there's a lot going on In this piece but what are the Highlights well it's really interesting Because like anytime I would ask someone About Tech Stars they would just say oh Yeah it's really crazy or really messy

Over there and I'm like but what does That mean and so like I think it all Spurred from when Seattle shut down we Were like I think it became a little More well known that okay something is Probably happening and it's maybe not Too spilling out in the public but There's definitely public indication That something is going on and so just High level it seems like looking back From the past two years two or three Years mayel gavat she became CEO in 2021 And I mean 2021 was like obviously a Really big year and Adventure but it Seems like Tech Stars has not been able To I guess find its footing since the Market went down they really really Struggled to balance the ambition to Scale and grow With also just the realities of it is Really hard to fundraise in addition to Fundraising that business model which it Doesn't look like it's compatible right Now with VC funding dump that's kind of What I wanted to ask about is you know Clearly since 2021 a lot of venture Capital firms and Affiliated type Entities have struggled so when we think About the the the problems of tech stars Are they mostly the market changes or do You think they mostly stem from Leadership and choices thereof you know What I was also trying to figure this Out right and I think I think if techar

Had better leadership and when I say Better I mean it seems like the CEO and The executive team they don't have any Experience and Venture and startups that Was a thing that mostly everyone brought Up they were like all of these amazing Incredible women they came from these Awesome places you know you had Amazon Bridgewater you had all these big names But no experience in Venture and startup And so when you're trying to fundraise In this really really hard environment And you're trying to also scale like a Company like Tech Stars and you don't Have any experience in venture or Startup I imagine that it's probably More complicated than it would be for Someone who would have experience I kind Of started getting an inkling myself That something was up with Tech Stars Last fall when I wrote a feature about Austin and different things going on Here in the city and one of the things That prompted that was that I had heard That the managing director Amos Schwarz Far who'd been with Tech Stars for I Think about eight years was going to be Leaving this came as a surprise I think He he seemed to be very very dedicated To the accelerator and his decision to Leave although by all accounts was an Amicable move was still to me a sign That things were not all okay within the Overall program and then as you

Mentioned a few months later we heard About Seattle and then so much more came Out that's why I had a little section in My story called The Missing managing Directors because there's a lot of them That are just missing and some of them Have left on their own accord others Have run into situations and so an Interesting theme has been that it's Been a lot of kind of not like Necessarily Old Guard managing directors But people who definitely aren't new Like they've been there for a minute and So what someone said to me was as more Of these older managing directors leave You can kind of get a new crop of MDS in Who might not challenge leadership who Might not necessarily know what it was Like being an MD under uh David Brown And who probably don't know any Different in terms of like even Compensation and all the changes that Were made and so you're definitely Running into a lot of tension where yeah Managing directors are going missing Well also wasn't there like some I Believe it was her that changed the Structure like managing directors used To have more power or control I guess It's a better word of the way their Local accelerator programs were being Run but didn't something change that Took that away from them yeah she's Trying to centralize the business model

Which is another interesting decision Tech Stars is really big because it was A very local thing it was very personal It was a very personal thing in the Ecosystem to kind of take away that Personal connection and centralize Everything in addition to the fact that A managing director compensation was Like tied to the carry of the companies That graduated from their programs now I Believe it's that any program that Doesn't have a corporate sponsor you Know they they have a shared pool of Capital like things like that the Centralized business model is the big Big change that I mean we just have to See how that works how do you think Tech Stars is doing operationally right now Because I know we've talked a lot about The last couple of years but they do Have Capital they're still operating so What's the health of the org now you Know that is a big question Because they do have money they have Capital but we do know that employees Are incredibly dissatisfied there are Big changes being made we have to see About these corporate sponsorships that They're putting a lot of weight on JP Morgan that $80 million sponsorship if That's not renewed you have a bunch of Programs that are just going to be wiped Out in addition to all of the employees That work there and so it's kind of like

This year seems to be okay we don't know About next year though it it seems like There will be more cost cutting in the Future I guess that's why the piece kind Of left on a we have to see cuz what Does it mean for Tech Stars to double Down on San Francisco and New York when There's like why combinator that exists You know there's all these new Accelerator programs so why would you Choose tech stars and so I think that This is going to be an interesting Year We're just going to have to see what Happens the org seems okay but we don't Really know what's going to happen next I'm really glad you brought up JP Morgan Because part of your story kind of gets Into one of the problems was these Strained corporate relationships which I Thought was interesting because as you Mentioned earlier they were bringing in All these people who had corporate Backgrounds I would have thought that That would have been an easy Relationship to maintain but how tenuous Are those relationships now for instance With like Melinda French Gates pivotal Ventures and the Louisiana Economic Development agency JP Morgan what's the Status of of those now and are they Essential for Tech Stars to continue With what they want to be doing that's The thing is like if techar wants to put So much emphasis on corporate

Partnerships they're going to need to do A better job of retaining these Partnerships and I know that they've Said like well we have more Partnerships And ever and like this is just natural Turn this is some big natural turn like To lose an $80 million JP Morgan Sponsorship is that's a big loss pivotal Ventures stopped working with them Louisiana Economic Development Fund they Sto stopped working with them they they Announced something in like March and That pulled out I heard early I have no Idea why they're not being able to Maintain things what I've heard from a Few people is that a common problem is That they overpromise and underd deliver And I think we kind of got a sense of That with the JP Morgan program because JP Morgan expected them to go in and Give all of their money to specifically Black brown and Indigenous people and Techar had a much more broader Definition of diversity but when you Looked at the numbers of you know the Black brown and Indigenous people that They were backing with the JP Morgan Money it's safe to say that JP Morgan Probably expected much more and I'm not Talking about like 50 60% they're Probably like I'm giving you $80 million Why isn't 70 to 80% of this money going To the people that it's supposed to go To and so I just little things like that

But then there were also with JP Morgan In particular there were issues Internally uh there were problems with Like managing director arguments over Not arguments is a strong word but maybe Some back and forth over the the naming Of programs so there were once again Internal issues that also kind of said Like why would I why would why would I Keep this going yeah it sounds like There's the typical churn that happens Like or typical problems that happen Which you just mentioned but really much Bigger issues and the problem with churn Is that eventually you run out of people In Partners corporate Partnerships it's Okay if you have some sticky moments Here and there but ultimately if you Want to land new people you better get Your act together so I'm really curious To see your future coverage Dom because I want to see if they've kind of cleaned Up their act and are continuing to not Just get new corporate Partners but keep Them and I just want to say we have no Official word on if JP has renewed or Not but I wouldn't be Sur surprised if They did not come back I like that you Call it JP as if they're like our best You know JP hasn't called yet and Dropped us a new note on the future PL So we're going to go knock on that door And see what JP is doing overall I think Honestly this this is really just kind

Of sad I mean techstars always to me had A really had a good reputation in the Accelerator world it was always seen as Kind of prestigious to participate in These programs it just bums me out a bit That this is what it's come to I also Found it interesting that when asked for Comment they really didn't comment other Than to try to disparage your reporting You gave them a really great opportunity To to kind of share their side of the Story and they didn't take it I know I Have no idea why they released that Comment they could have addressed Anything in the story and they kind of Skirted around it and then also took a Dig at us which had to print that in Full but I'm going to go ahead and read It just because I think it's kind of Funny digging into the the tuex Stars Quote here it is reckless that teen has Chosen to paint a distorted picture of Our business by providing unnamed Sources a platform for unverified Grievances um everybody talked to us it Seems like an unnamed Source there was One woman who literally went on record So that's why I was like I I wouldn't Say unnamed you know well unnamed to the Reader not unnamed to us yeah we know Who talk yes yeah and by the way why do People not want to have their name put Onto something sometimes well because They could get sued or because they have

Career worries and so often if we know Somebody have verified their time and so Forth we will use them as a source and Protect their identity but we have the Same standards like we have multiple Sources on each thing and so forth I I Think it just makes them look petulant It also gives them more attention a bad Comment usually backfires on you and Then everyone takes a lot more interest You know the Strand effect if you will Yeah um just want to commend you again For your excellent and thorough Reporting here and also thank you so Much for joining us to talk about it we Always love to have you on the show yeah I know my life has been All Tech Stars For three months so always happy to talk About it always happy to talk about it All right well we'll have to leave it There but eity will be back on Monday Until then you can find me on X at Bay Area Rider Alex on X Alex Kirsten Kirsten corc and Equity under the handle Equity pod on X and threads and Dom Where can we find you please follow me On Twitter I'm still trying to hit 10K It's Dominic madori I've been trying for Two years now please and don't forget to Check out our sister show found which Dom actually co-hosts which Dives deep Into the stories behind startups with The founders who built them Bye Equity is hosted by myself Alex

Wilhelm and techren Senior reporter Mary An aeto we are produced by Teresa loans Solo with editing by Kell Bryce Durban Is our illustrator and a big thank you To the audience development team and Henry pette who manages Tech wrench Audio products thank you so much for Listening and we'll talk to you next Time