The hydrogen plateau and IRA funding crutch | Equity Podcast

Rebecca Bellan sits down with Lisa Coca from Toyota Ventures during Climate Week NYC to discuss a key part of Toyota Ventures’ $800 million portfolio – their Climate Fund. The fund’s $300 million is laser-focused on climate innovation, but Coca says it casts a wide net beyond just mobility, backing startups from seed to Series…

Published

2 years ago

September 26, 2024

CYBER TECH TV

Rebecca Bellan sits down with Lisa Coca from Toyota Ventures during Climate Week NYC to discuss a key part of Toyota Ventures’ $800 million portfolio – their Climate Fund.

The fund’s $300 million is laser-focused on climate innovation, but Coca says it casts a wide net beyond just mobility, backing startups from seed to Series A. So far, they’ve invested in companies like AM Batteries, which is cutting battery manufacturing costs by 40%, and Ecoletro, pioneers in green hydrogen production using hydropower.

Together, Bellan and Coca are shedding light on the significant challenges in hydrogen, direct air capture, and methane reduction, and emphasizing that startups need to achieve cost parity with fossil fuels to drive real change.

Equity is a show about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. New episodes drop at 7 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

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Science & Technology

The Biggest Startup Mistakes a Lawyer Can’t Fix

You might not need a lawyer before you start fundraising but you do need to set up a good legal foundation. In this episode of Build Mode, the CEO and founder of Lexsy Kristina Subbotina breaks down the four unfixable mistakes that can make a startup unfundable or kill it outright. Watch the full episode…

Published

8 hours ago

August 7, 2026

CYBER TECH TV

You might not need a lawyer before you start fundraising but you do need to set up a good legal foundation.

In this episode of Build Mode, the CEO and founder of Lexsy Kristina Subbotina breaks down the four unfixable mistakes that can make a startup unfundable or kill it outright.

Watch the full episode here:

Entertainment

We Know More About Time Than You Think

Sir Isaac Newton claimed time flows universally. Albert Einstein said that time is relative to the observer. Theoretical physicist Professor Brian Greene rejoins WIRED to break down the emerging theories that tell us everything we know about time; from the impact of speed (special relativity) and gravity (general relativity) on time dilation to the role…

Published

9 hours ago

August 7, 2026

CYBER TECH TV

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WIRED is where tomorrow is realized.

Science & Technology

Why historian Jill Lepore thinks Big Tech CEOs read sci-fi all wrong | Equity Podcast

Historian Jill Lepore has a theory about why tech companies often use soaring language to describe their products — almost as if they’re forming a new government. And whether you’re thinking of Twitter’s old “town hall in your pocket” or Anthropic’s Claude constitution, it’s a theory that doesn’t paint Silicon Valley in a very flattering…

Published

10 hours ago

August 7, 2026

CYBER TECH TV

In Lepore’s upcoming book, The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Harvard historian and New Yorker writer argues that tech companies are gradually taking on the functions of democratic government — whether that’s Twitter giving a distorted picture of the electorate or Facebook displacing local news. In her view, these leaders often mistake technological advancement for political progress, all while outright declaring their intention to replace the nation-state.

On this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Anthony Ha talks with Lepore about her book and why she thinks today’s AI leaders — who promise a future where AI makes government more efficient, more responsive, and maybe even unnecessary — are selling an old fantasy in new packaging.

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

0:49 Defining the “artificial state”

2:17 Why corporations quietly took over state functions

4:43 Could the internet have gone another way?

9:01 From the 1984 Macintosh ad to Anthropic’s constitution

10:20 The Twitter “town hall” myth

13:36 Structuring the book: history meets science fiction

17:46 The Machine Stops, and other bad manuals for the future

19:16 Musk, Heinlein, and misreading sci-fi

19:41 Why Lepore thinks the artificial state is “doomed”