Waymo’s robotaxi fire, AI field trips and crypto goes up | Equity Podcast

This episode is sponsored by Morgan Stanley atw work visit morganstanley.com Assessment to get your free transaction Readiness assessment [Music] Today hello and welcome back to equity The Tech runch podcast about the Business of startups where we unpack the Numbers and the Nuance behind the Headlines this is Alex good morning Today is February 12th 2024 and this is equity's Monday show Where we take a look back at the weekend And a Peak at the week that is ahead of Us now this morning we are post big Football game all I can say about that Is let's go Chiefs and let's go Eagles Next year but I bring that up in case The news feels ever so slightly light This morning I think that's due in part To people holding back their News until The sports game has worked its way Through the system not that we don't Have a lot of great stuff this morning It just feels fractionally slower than I Expect for this time of the year now on The show we do have a key earnings week Crypto's latest key price movements whmo On fire tech politics and starlink Bug Crowds big ground and then we'll close Out with a VC sponsored AI field trip Let's Go let's start with a look at the world Of money and if you spend that Globe

You'll find that stocks are mixed in Asia today mostly High in Europe and Flat in pre-market trading here in the US but what I care about the most is Actually the upcoming earnings week lots Of names lots of data coming here's what You need to know on Monday we'll hear From Arista networks monday.com Zoom Info and grinder I care a lot about Monday.com because it's been one of the Fastest growing SAS companies out there And I'm curious to see if it can keep That streak up on Tuesday Shopify Airbnb Data dog aami technology Zillow Instacart lyt IAC and Blackline Shopify Will tell us quite a lot about the state Of e-commerce Airbnb will tell us about The tech consumer Market data do has Also been a fast growing SAS company to Watch and instacart is a recent IPO then Wednesday Cisco HubSpot app Loven twilio Jrog fastly udemy upwork and nerd wallet Another day of a lot of names but HubSpot of course is a fast growing SAS Company so we're all watching that twio Recently changed out its CEO and I'd Forgotten about jrog which is now worth I believe over $4 billion then Thursday Is door Dash coinbase Roku Dropbox Yelp And Open Door questions include what Does coinbase say about the rest of the Year for crypto and can Dropbox reignite Growth after all this Time and then there was crypto where I

Have a lot of news for you first up There has been a big price pump in the Last week that means that Bitcoin is up About 11% in the last 7 days to around $48,000 and ethereum's token is up about 7% in the last week to about 2500 now there has been a slight Pullback in prices in the last 24 hours But we're still seeing good gains over The last week so if you are a crypto Kiddo well good news you are now worth More money elsewhere spot trading has Earned back some of the recent declines We've seen in total of volume which is Good news for exchanges everywhere in Total I think this data set is another Indication that crypto is having a far Better start to this year than it had in The middle of last year so positive if You will this is also why I'm so Interested in coinbase's earnings this Week because sure it will tell us what It did in Q4 of last year but I'm Curious about how much of an optimistic Tone it can strike when it talks to Investors about the rest of 2024 next up my favorite part of the Show what I call big news that matters And today's biggest news is an absolute Bummer yep I want to talk about the wh Mo assault over this weekend a wh Mo Assult driving car was attacked in San Francisco The Verge reports that the car Was initially attacked by someone who

Smashed its windshield and then a quote Crowd formed around the car and covered It in spray paint breaking its windows And ultimately set it on fire end quote What the hell everybody what a waste of Progress if you want to understand the Dynamics here look up a chart of Pedestrian deaths in the US caused by Auto collisions over time and then Consider what self driving cars could do For our world in terms of safety once we Get the technology right it's going to Be incredibly awesome it's going to be An economic boom and also I think make Our day-to-day lives just that much Better but all that takes work and Training time and more data things That's setting fire to a wh Mo vehicle Literally inhibits now the Techno Optimist view that any regulation is Evil is just as silly to me as the Lite View that all progress is bad this is Just such a stupid story now the good News is that weo said that no one was in The car at the time which is a blessing But the reactionary hatred of tech Products that can really improve our Lives is just nuts what the hell Everyone moving along everyone's least Favorite story Tech versus potic If the wayo Saga we just talked about Doesn't make it plain to you that Technology is political today or that Politics is a tech story if you want

Well that should be made extra clear in Light of the recent dust up regarding Starlink and the Russian invasion of Ukraine now condensing the story to its Key bullet points defense one recently Reported that Russian units are using Starlink connections to access the Internet This was later seemingly Confirmed by a social media post from Russian volunteers according to the ft And then Ukrainian Military Intelligence Said that it could confirm that Russian Forces are in fact using starlink then On Sunday starlink boss Elon Musk said That the news was quote categorically False end quote and went on to add that And I quote again to the best of our Knowledge no starlings have been sold Directly or indirectly to Russia end Quote okay so the truth will out here With more reporting but what a pickle For musk his Tesla does a lot of Business in China a country that is a Key Russian Ally and Russia is itself Now increasingly isolated from Global Financial and Technology markets which Means that most tech from the US is not Supposed to be for sale or used there Musk has gotten into scraps before Concerning Ukrainian usage of starlink In war zones but now the satellite Internet Tech might be on both sides of The battlefield and that could be bad at Home the US government runs the country

Where Tesla is based along with other Musk companies and now the tech Mogul is Stretched in a new way between the two Poles of global power perhaps the Ex-owner can manage this situation but It's not going to be not messy is it is Your company planning to go public or Conduct a shareholder liquidity program Within the next 18 to 24 months did you Know that proactively planning for your Next private company liquidity event or IPO can help you maintain greater Control over timelines and outcomes Morgan Stanley at work believes that When you have the right technology and Systems in place working in harmony Leading up to a transaction you can Prepare and execute with more accuracy And ease visit morganstanley.com Assessment to connect with their issuer Strategy and Excellence team for a free Assessment to find out if your company Is transaction ready again that's Morganstanley.com Assessment to get your free assessment [Music] Today next up the big round for today And it comes to us via bug crowd what is It well it's a startup that Taps into a Database of about a half million hackers To help ORS like open Ai and the US Government set up and run bug Bounty Programs what are those they're cash Rewards to Freelancers who can find bugs

And vulnerabilities in thirdparty code And that work has been good enough that Bug crowd just raised $102 million General catalyst led the investment Which saw previous backers rally Ventures and Costa NOA Ventures take Part the company has now raised over $180 million to date and while it did Not share its latest valuation CEO Dave Gary did say in an interview with tech Runch that its new price was quote Significantly up on its last round Tech Run's ingr London points out that as a Point of comparison one of the startups Bigger competitors hacker one was last Valued at 829 million back in 2022 so This bug Bounty work could actually Yield in time two unicorns not bad how Did bug crowd raise such a big round in 2024 a year in which we're seeing far Fewer Mega rounds than before well it CEO did tell us that the company has Been growing at over 40% annually and is Approaching 100 million in annual Revenues raising 100 million give or Take makes just a lot more sense when It's about one year's Revenue so put bug Crowd on the IPO watch list in I don't Know about 2 years Time moving towards an end here I have An interesting one for you VC sponsored AI field trips Tech runch writes that Peak 15 The Venture Capital firm that Split from Sequoia Capital last year and

Focuses on India is taking portfolio Companies from the southeast Asia region On a immersion trip to Silicon Valley This week to meet with a bunch of Industry folks the group group is about 60 Founders they're going to talk with Open AI Nvidia and Sequoia partner Doug Leon this is all according to Tech runch Reporting but I got to say this talk About a venture capital value ad and Indication that even with seoa now split Into several parts its International Breakout organizations cannot ignore the Centrality of Silicon Valley in the Current AI boom colid second second Second win for the well-known Tech Hub Also a good question to keep in mind is Who will the regional AI Champion be in Asia excluding of course the closed Chinese market in the US there's open Ai And anthropic well-known names amongst a Number of Mega cap tech companies that Are also investing or building Their Own Foundation models and then over in Europe we tend to discuss mraw AI rather Frequently so will India build the Leading AI model company for its region It does seem that Peak 15 Partners Certainly hope So and to close us out as last week Wrapped Tech runch reported that notion Acquired skiff a platform that offers Endtoend encrypted file storage docs Calendar events and email and this news

Came after the well-known startup bought Kon which it used recently to bring Calendar functionality to its own Service so is notion building an entire Productivity stack if so it could help The company grow into its valuation Recall that notion raised 50 million at A $2 billion price de back in 2020 but If there's one thing I've learned in the Recent AI boom it's that productivity Plus AI equals dollar signs just ask Google or [Music] Microsoft and that is our show for this Fine Monday morning of course if you Want even more Equity between now and Wednesday when we are back in your Podcast feed we are Equity pod over on X And threads and if you need even more of My voice well I'm Alex over on X we have Two sister shows chain reaction focused On all things crypto and found which Digs into those founder stories you need To hear well we'll talk to you soon Goodbye Equity is hosted by myself Alex Wilhelm and Tech rench senior reporter Mary an azto 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 Runch audio products thank you so much For listening and we'll talk to you next Time