Show Notes
Andreessen Horowitz has two partners sitting on the boards of companies that now compete with each other: Ben Horowitz at Databricks and Martin Casado at Fivetran. Nothing too scandalous on the surface, except the Department of Justice has reportedly been investigating the arrangement for almost a year, dusting off a 112-year-old antitrust law that's rarely used against VCs.
Board conflicts aren't exactly new, and these companies weren't necessarily direct competitors when a16z first invested in them. But as portfolio companies expand into each other's markets, the DOJ's scrutiny raises a much bigger question for venture firms: How do you manage board seats when the boundaries between your portfolio companies keep moving? On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O'Kane dig into the a16z probe, what it could mean for VCs, and more of the week’s headlines.
Listen to the full episode to hear more about:
Why Stripe paid $7.5 billion for AI model router OpenRouter, and why the “singularity” isn't the real reason
What happens to the AI companies caught in the middle as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Nvidia pull further ahead
Why Rivian spinout Also just raised $150 million to make a bigger bet on autonomous vehicles
Uber’s newest delivery partnership with drone company Zipline, and what it means for the other autonomous startups betting their futures on Uber
Whether we've reached peak valuation for AI dictation apps after Wispr's $280 million raise at a $2 billion valuation
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
1:02 TechCrunch Disrupt and the Startup Battlefield 200
3:17 The DOJ is investigating a16z over board seats
14:47 Why Stripe just paid $7.5B for “the Stripe for AI”
18:18 The mid-tier AI scramble: gateways, pivots, and acquihires
23:17 Anthropic's revenue surges while OpenAI's losses deepen
27:08 Also raises $150M and drops the “micro mobility” label
32:30 Uber teams up with Zipline for drone delivery
37:19 Wispr hits a $2B valuation
38:26 Outro Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
More from Equity
It seems like every big AI player is building a personal agent. Meta has Muse, OpenAI launched Dots, and a startup called Instinct recently raised $1 billion at a $10 billion valuation. But Eugenia Kuyda thinks the next generation of AI assistants needs to do more than book your restaurant reservations and find you hidden money in your Gmail.
Amulya Vishwanath, who spent seven years leading product marketing for NVIDIA’s robotics platforms, says robotics is currently in its “Lego era,” with the basic building blocks like actuators, robotic hands, software, and safety standards still being rebuilt.
The Equity crew was live at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026! Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O’Kane took over the Builders Stage Tuesday morning to tackle a growing challenge for the AI industry: what happens when AI agents go off-script, and who’s responsible for keeping them in check?
Amazon says it will stop using NDAs when negotiating data center deals with local governments, following a similar move from Microsoft earlier this year. Secrecy has fueled community backlash against AI infrastructure, with opposition leading to hundreds of proposed and enacted moratoriums from New York to San Francisco. Meanwhile, a wave of startups is betting that consumers will hand AI agents access to their inboxes, files, and credit cards — if they can get websites to let them in.
Tristan Walker and Brynn Putnam both built and sold major consumer companies. Now, they’re building products designed to bring people together.