Equity

AI-generated video has gone from novelty to creative tool in AI-generated video has gone from novelty to creative tool almost overnight, and Runway has a front-row seat to the shift. The New York-based company has raised close to $860 million at a $5.3 billion valuation, and its models are going toe-to-toe with the most well-funded labs in the world, including Google and OpenAI.  

And the technology goes way beyond making videos: it's now pushing into general world models with applications in gaming, robotics, and maybe something closer to general intelligence. 

On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, host Rebecca Bellan sits down with co-founder and CEO Cristobal Valenzuela to talk about where video generation goes from here, and why Runway's ambitions now reach well beyond Hollywood. 

Listen to the full episode to hear about: 


Why Valenzuela thinks the real constraint on filmmaking has never been technology, and what changes when it is 


How Runway thinks about world models differently than Google and other labs building in the space 


What "nonlinear media" means, and why real-time video generation opens up use cases way beyond content creation 


Why Valenzuela pushes back on the idea that AI companions are “inherently dystopian” 

Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. 

Chapters: 

00:00 Intro 

00:56 Can AI really replace Hollywood? 

04:18 Why "AI slop" fears miss the point 

08:23 Research lab, software company, or creative studio? 

13:42 From video generation to world models, explained 

17:36 Omni models and multimodal training 

17:50 The three pillars: linear media, non-linear media, physical AI 

19:31 Real-time video and the "Characters" product 

22:33 Are AI companions inherently dystopian? 

25:59 Physical AI and robotics 

28:35 Where growth is coming from: enterprise and prosumer 

29:31 Outro 
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A new era is on the way for Apple as Tim Cook plans to step down from his CEO role in September, handing the reins to hardware chief John Ternus.  

Ternus may be inheriting one of the most durable businesses in tech, but he’s also stepping into a very different ecosystem than the one Cook spent decades shaping. The App Store’s 30% cut is under pressure, the behind-the-scenes power Apple once held over developers is being challenged, and AI-native apps are changing what it means to build on Apple’s platform. 

On this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O’Kane dig into what this transition means for startups and a closer look at some of the week’s biggest deals — including SpaceX's $60B option on Cursor. 

Listen to the full episode to hear about: 


Why Anthropic’s Mythos model is raising questions about both safety and marketing 


The $5 billion Amazon-Anthropic deal that looks a lot like every other circular AI infrastructure play 


What the SpaceX-Cursor agreement (and that $10 billion breakup fee) says about Elon Musk's AI strategy post-xAI merger 


Why fintech Revolut and AI chip startup Cerebras' public market plans have us wondering whether this is actually the year the IPO market reopens 

Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. 

 

Chapters: 

00:00 Intro 

00:26 Anthropic's Mythos accessed by “unauthorized groups” 

04:28 Is Amazon's $5B Anthropic investment just another circular deal? 

09:53 SpaceX and Cursor’s $60B option 

18:25 Is this finally the year of the IPO? 

21:38 SpaceX, Revolut, and Cerebras: the IPOs to watch 

26:41 Tim Cook's retirement plans 

29:15 What a new Apple CEO means for startups and the App Store 

35:59 Outro 
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Fusion energy has been "20 years away" for decades, but has the science finally caught up? Private investment in fusion companies surged from $10 billion to $15 billion in just months, and the money is coming from places you wouldn't expect. 

On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan and guest host Tim De Chant sit down with Rachel Slaybaugh, general partner at DCVC, to break down why serious investors are finally treating fusion as a real asset class, and what the return thesis actually looks like when no one expects a power plant in their fund lifetime. 

Listen to the full episode to hear about: 


Why the investment thesis for fusion looks less like traditional VC and more like biotech or SpaceX, and what "fusion euphoria" has to do with it 


What the Q value milestone actually means, and how close leading startups are to hitting the number that could trigger a public market opening 


How superconducting tape and AI-assisted plasma physics are quietly doing as much work as the big headline science breakthroughs 


Why one fusion company merging with Trump Media and Technology Group had Tim doing a double-take at his inbox 

Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. 
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The gap between AI insiders and everyone else is widening, and the spending, suspicion, and even new vocabulary are starting to show it. While OpenAI is busy buying up everything from finance apps to talk shows, a certain shoe company just rebranded as an AI infrastructure play, and Anthropic unveiled a model it says is too powerful to release publicly ...but apparently not too powerful to demo to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. 

On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O'Kane dig into what's actually being built in AI infrastructure, who's winning the enterprise battle between OpenAI and Anthropic, and more of the week's headlines. 

Listen to the full episode to hear about: 


Why chipmakers AMD, Arm, and Qualcomm just piled $60M into UK self-driving startup Wayve, and what Uber's $300M milestone bid says about who's winning the AV race 


How data center startup Fluidstack is positioning itself for the frontier labs, including a reported $50B agreement with Anthropic 


What Claude Code's moment at the HumanX conference reveals about where the OpenAI vs. Anthropic rivalry is actually playing out 


Why tokenmaxxing, and Meta's leaked internal leaderboard, might say more about optics than actual productivity 

Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. 

 

Chapters: 

00:00 Intro 

00:25 Allbirds is now an AI company, apparently 

04:48 Why chipmakers are betting on Wayve 

12:01 Fluidstack wants $1B to build AI data centers 

16:24 OpenAI buys a finance app and a talk show 

21:27 Anthropic vs. OpenAI in enterprise 

24:15 The Anthropic model they won't release to the public 

26:47 Why AI feels so distant to everyone else 

30:47 What even is tokenmaxxing? 

34:49 Parasail's $32M bet on cheaper AI inference 

36:39 Outro 
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When Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Aloe Blacc got COVID despite being vaccinated and boosted, he tried to fund research for a better solution. What he quickly found out? You can't just write a check in biotech. Regulators require a commercialization plan, and philanthropy doesn't move science through clinical trials or get you a license on university IP. Now, he's bootstrapping a cancer drug platform targeting pancreatic cancer, a disease that kills 90% of its patients, and intentionally waiting to raise from his network until peer-reviewed papers can make his case. 

On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan sits down with Aloe Blacc to talk about what happens when a creator decides to build instead of just invest, how Aloe is watching AI reshape both the biotech and music industries in real time, and his thoughts on who actually wins. 

Listen to the full episode to hear: 


How he’s navigating a world where credibility is earned in data, not fame 


How a University of Houston molecule discovery platform could cut years off drug development timelines 


Why he thinks record labels, not artists or AI companies, will ultimately control the economics of AI-generated music 


What Suno taught him about prototyping, and why his next album will still be recorded with live musicians 

Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. 
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