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Equity

What’s more venture capital than space lasers?

Equity

TechCrunch

Entrepreneurship, Business News, News, Business, Technology

4.2372 Ratings

🗓️ 13 September 2023

⏱️ 31 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week, we brought TechCrunch+ senior climate reporter Tim De Chant on to talk climate tech, hardware breakthroughs, and why we have a whole stage this year at Disrupt focused on sustainability. On that last point, perhaps you have gone outside recently. Extreme weather around the world, warming oceans, fires — it's a mess out there. That's the bad news. The good news is that a number of startups are working hard to build new technologies that could shoothe our struggling planet. And perhaps make a lot of money in the process. Here's what we got into on the show: Climate tech venture capital activity. Why aren't we seeing more capital despite some interesting activity. The question of fusion. Is it really around the corner (this time)? Why we're both excited about potential hardware breakthroughs, even if LK-99 was not the real deal. Dread about our changing world. Tim is not only a great journalist, he's also very good at the whole science thing, so he was a treat to talk to! We're back on Friday for our last recording before we're on stage at Disrupt! Talk soon. For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups where we

0:16.0

unpack the numbers and the nuance behind the headlines. My name is Alex and

0:19.6

this is our Wednesday show where we sit down with a guest, think about their work and unpack the rest.

0:24.7

Today is September 13th, 2003 and we are so close to Tech Prince Disrupt.

0:29.4

I am flying out in two days, which is good because I'm going to be able to hang out with my dear friend

0:34.2

Tim Deshant from the TechWench Plus team who is also on the podcast today because we

0:38.5

are talking about climate tech but Tim first of all welcome to the show how are you

0:42.3

thanks Alex good how you doing I'm hanging in there But Tim, first of all, welcome to the show. How are you?

0:42.5

Thanks Alex, good. How are you doing?

0:44.0

I'm hanging in there.

0:45.2

But also, we're going to do disrupt this year in a little bit of a new way,

0:48.5

and I hear there's a whole stage predicated on essentially what you do.

0:52.2

Yes, there is.

0:53.0

Whole stage, a lot of people coming, going to be chatting for pretty much half the day, maybe a little

0:59.2

bit more.

1:00.2

Got some good names on the list this year, show up. Yeah and so it's called the

1:04.6

sustainability stage and which day of the event is it? First day Tuesday. First day

1:09.5

Tuesday. First day Tuesday so essentially if you're coming to disrupt come watch Equity live and then divvy your attention between my stage, the Builder's stage, and where Tim will be over on the sustainability stage.

1:18.0

It's going to be, if you couldn't tell, a massive show.

1:21.0

So we're not stressed at all I'm totally relaxed yeah a

1:25.1

piece of cake I'm just hoping that all my clothes arrive before I have to

1:29.2

finish packing so that way I look presentable on stage. You too, huh?

...

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