Please login or sign up to post and edit reviews.
Axios' Dan Primack on 'the most polarizing startup that exists'
Podcast |
Equity
Publisher |
TechCrunch
Media Type |
audio
Publication Date |
Aug 13, 2019
Episode Duration |
00:42:00

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

This week was a bit special. Instead of meeting up at the TechCrunch HQ to record the episode, Kate and Alex met up in muggy Boston at Drift's office, where we linked up with Axios's Dan Primack. And since we were feeling chatty, we went a bit long.

After checking in with Primack (he has pro-rata-1e757719-d95d-495a-bae8-d8e2b7e1f6d1.html">a newsletter and a podcast), we first dealt with the latest from Tumblr. In short, Verizon Media is selling Tumblr to Automattic for a few dollars. How did Verizon wind up owning Tumblr? Ah. Well, Yahoo bought it. Later, after Verizon bought AOL, it bought Yahoo. Then it oath-yahoo-aol.html">smushed them together and called it Oath. Then Verizon decided that it didn't like that much and renamed the group Verizon Media. But Verizon doesn't want to own media (besides TechCrunch, of course), so it sold Tumblr to Automattic, a venture-backed company best known for operating WordPress.

That's a lot, I know. What matters is that Yahoo bought Tumblr for more than $1 billion. Verizon sold it for verizon-sale-automattic-wordpress-5d8d374b-17af-49fb-9769-2ffb82b25df7.html">around $3 million. Now, Automattic now has a few hundred new employees and a shot at juicing its userbase before it goes public.

After that, we lamented that the WeWork S-1 had yet to appear. This was a tragedy, frankly. We had expected to spend half the show riffing on WeWork's financials, alas...

So we turned to some normal material, like Ramp's recent $7 million raise to take on Brex, and, SmartNews's recent round, which gave it an eye-popping $1.1 billion valuation.

We ran a bit long because we were having fun, fitting in some conversation surrounding the notes from the SEC regarding the now-dead and then-fraudulent Rothenberg Ventures. More on that here if you want to get angry.

And finally, Vision Fund 2. It's been a big source of interest for everyone on the show, and we expect whatever the second-act Vision Fund winds up becoming to be a big damn deal. The fund will invest in more than just consumer marketplaces, in fact, it's eyeing more AI businesses and even biotech. That should be interesting.

All that and we have a lot more good stuff coming. Thanks for listening to the show, and we'll be right back.

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This week was a bit special. Instead of meeting up at the TechCrunch HQ to record the episode, Kate and Alex met up in muggy Boston at Drift's office, where we linked up with Axios's Dan Primack. And since we were feeling chatty, we went a bit long.

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

This week was a bit special. Instead of meeting up at the TechCrunch HQ to record the episode, Kate and Alex met up in muggy Boston at Drift's office, where we linked up with Axios's Dan Primack. And since we were feeling chatty, we went a bit long.

After checking in with Primack (he has pro-rata-1e757719-d95d-495a-bae8-d8e2b7e1f6d1.html">a newsletter and a podcast), we first dealt with the latest from Tumblr. In short, Verizon Media is selling Tumblr to Automattic for a few dollars. How did Verizon wind up owning Tumblr? Ah. Well, Yahoo bought it. Later, after Verizon bought AOL, it bought Yahoo. Then it oath-yahoo-aol.html">smushed them together and called it Oath. Then Verizon decided that it didn't like that much and renamed the group Verizon Media. But Verizon doesn't want to own media (besides TechCrunch, of course), so it sold Tumblr to Automattic, a venture-backed company best known for operating WordPress.

That's a lot, I know. What matters is that Yahoo bought Tumblr for more than $1 billion. Verizon sold it for verizon-sale-automattic-wordpress-5d8d374b-17af-49fb-9769-2ffb82b25df7.html">around $3 million. Now, Automattic now has a few hundred new employees and a shot at juicing its userbase before it goes public.

After that, we lamented that the WeWork S-1 had yet to appear. This was a tragedy, frankly. We had expected to spend half the show riffing on WeWork's financials, alas...

So we turned to some normal material, like Ramp's recent $7 million raise to take on Brex, and, SmartNews's recent round, which gave it an eye-popping $1.1 billion valuation.

We ran a bit long because we were having fun, fitting in some conversation surrounding the notes from the SEC regarding the now-dead and then-fraudulent Rothenberg Ventures. More on that here if you want to get angry.

And finally, Vision Fund 2. It's been a big source of interest for everyone on the show, and we expect whatever the second-act Vision Fund winds up becoming to be a big damn deal. The fund will invest in more than just consumer marketplaces, in fact, it's eyeing more AI businesses and even biotech. That should be interesting.

All that and we have a lot more good stuff coming. Thanks for listening to the show, and we'll be right back.

This episode currently has no reviews.

Submit Review
This episode could use a review!

This episode could use a review! Have anything to say about it? Share your thoughts using the button below.

Submit Review