Happy New Year and welcome to 2023! As promised, Natasha is taking over Equity Monday for the beginning of this year as Alex is out on paternity leave. Big hugs to his growing family!

We're starting the year with big post-PTO energy, because there's no other way we know how to do it. Here's what we chatted:

• Tesla missing expectations, Meta doing its let's-just-acquire-smart-talent thing, and a debut in the S&P 500 that caught our attention.
• A big idea that is running around over at Matrix. TC's Paul Sawers looks into how messaging apps may become more interoperable thanks to a fascinating new protocol. To us, this screams the ideas of decentralization from crypto last year, but with a more understandable pitch. Catch me Slacking you on WhatsApp!
• Finally, we end with a look ahead at CES this week. We have reporters on the ground catching the moonshots, and we'll have updates for you with the full crew on Friday!

As always, there's more to come, so follow us on Twitter @EquityPod

Equity drops at 10 a.m. PT every Monday and at 7 a.m. PT on Wednesdays and Fridays, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotifyand all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together, and more!

Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products.