Meta’s big AI bet and our not-so-hot-take on fintech IPOs

Equity

TechCrunch

Founders, Silicon Valley, Finance, Ipo, Vc, Technology, Business News, Startups, Business, Venture Capital, News, Stock Market, Entrepreneurship, Techcrunch

4.2 • 365 Ratings

🗓️ 13 June 2025

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Meta just made a $14.3 billion bet on data-labeling company Scale AI, but it’s not a traditional takeover: Meta’s taking a 49% stake in the company and adding Scale’s co-founder Alexandr Wang to its team. Today on Equity, we break down what this means for Meta’s AI ambitions and revisit Wang’s early AI predictions. Listen to the full episode to hear more highlights from the week, including: How Chime’s IPO priced above expectations at $27 per share and jumped in early trading, and Anthony’s not-so-hot takes on what this signals for the tech IPO market Why Y Combinator’s Demo Day was packed with “agentic” AI startups building autonomous software, and how a recent chat with Fiverr’s CEO sheds light on AI-driven task automation in the gig economy How Jony Ive’s LoveFrom spent 18 months quietly collaborating with Rivian on their first electric bike, a spinout product confirmed to have a bike-like form factor Equity will be back next week, so stay tuned! Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. We’d also like to thank TechCrunch’s audience development team. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll talk to you next time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, this is Anthony.
0:11.3	So in the episode you're about to hear Kirsten Max and I talk about Meta's investment
0:15.4	in Scale AI.
0:16.6	When we recorded, there was a lot of reporting around the deal, but no official confirmation.
0:20.6	However, on Thursday night, the companies announced that META is indeed investing at scale
0:24.3	at evaluation of $29 billion with Scales founder Alexander Wing joining META.
0:30.2	I think our discussion still holds up, but keep that in mind as you listen.
0:33.9	Okay, enjoy the episode.
0:37.9	I have a controversial question. Liquid glass. Should I care about it?
0:44.1	I think you should not care a lot about it. I think that Apple announced this big iOS redesign, Liquid Glass.
0:55.2	And I think the gist of it is that it doesn't really work super well right now.
0:59.0	The people who've tried it in beta, you can't really see your control center when you swipe down on your iPhone.
1:04.9	And you can just see everything behind it.
1:06.6	And it's confusing.
1:08.3	It seems to be like they're going to do a lot of work on liquid glass. And it's going to be a lot different by the time it really confusing. It seems to be like they're going to do a lot of work on liquid glass,
1:12.3	and it's going to be a lot different by the time it really launches. But people have very strong
1:16.2	feelings. I just want to note for the audience because they can't see you that you took the longest
1:22.5	pause and then answered. So are you trying to tread carefully here, Max? Or?
1:28.2	This is a political question. You might as well have asked you who I'm voting for in the next election.
1:33.6	Because this is, some people love liquid glass. Like I think I've seen online, like, some people are like, yes.
1:38.9	This is like the new design kind of revolution that we've been waiting for. I love this.
1:43.9	I love like Apple
	...

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